First Fruit
Harvesting Skills for Enterprise and Mission
About First Fruit
First Fruit is a close-knit group of social businesses, projects and hostels based in the London Borough of Newham.
Our goal is to provide accommodation, employment and work-related training for homeless people and for those who are long-term unemployed.
The organisation is founded on Christian principles, but works with people of all faiths and none. We are pioneering cross-denominational approaches to making a real impact on the local community and breaking down the sacred/secular divide.
First Fruit was founded in 1997 by Rev Peter and Mrs Hannah Watherston. We now employ around thirty people across the organisation, and accommodate fourteen men in our two hostels.
Our Mission
Friedrich Engels, on describing mid-19th century labour in the East End of London, once remarked that “hundreds of the poor appear each morning in winter before daybreak, in the hope of getting a day’s work. They await the opening of the gates; and, when the youngest and strongest and best known have been engaged, hundreds, cast down by disappointment, go back to their wretched homes.”
One hundred and sixty years on and many things have changed for the better in East London. But, exasperated by high levels of unemployment, for many local people the despondency of not getting through the doors of employers continues to be an everyday reality.
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First Fruit social businesses and projects
First Fruit is a company limited by guarantee no. 3477267 and a registered charity no. 1066749
Registered address: Latimer Hall, Cleves Road, East Ham, London, E6 1QF.
Office Address:
Unit 13, Kierbeck Estate
North Woolwich Road
Silvertown
London
E16 2BG