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    • Home
    • About Us
    • Services we Provide
      • Donate your Furniture
      • Food Bank
      • Furniture Showroom
      • House Clearance
      • Removal Service
      • School Uniform Project
      • Storage Solutions
    • Missions
    • Contact Us
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Services we Provide
    • Donate your Furniture
    • Food Bank
    • Furniture Showroom
    • House Clearance
    • Removal Service
    • School Uniform Project
    • Storage Solutions
  • Missions
  • Contact Us

About Us

How Jacobs Well Care Centre started

Jacob's Well Care Centre was founded in 1992 by Stuart & Angela Pottinger, the Charity was originally set up to provide free furniture to those in need in Gosport, also to provide aid for the people in the Salaj district of Romania.

In the beginning members of Jacob's Well church and local volunteers helped to collect clothing, bedding and furniture surplus to requirements and distributed them to those in need. 


1992 - 1999

1992 - The Beginning

Jacobs Well and Romanian Mission was born.

Jacobs Well and Romanian Mission was born.

Jacob's Well Care Centre was founded in 1992 by Stuart & Angela Pottinger. Members of Jacob's Well church and local volunteers helped to collect clothing, bedding and furniture surplus to requirements and  distributed them to those in need. Our First organization was run from a warehouse which was donated free of charge in the middle of Rowner Gosport 

Jacobs Well and Romanian Mission was born.

Jacobs Well and Romanian Mission was born.

Jacobs Well and Romanian Mission was born.

Stuart and Angela first saw the conditions of the Romanian orphanages on the news, it was after seeing this.....they knew they had to help.

At the start of it all, Angela was a preschool manager, and I had my own business, we both decided to give up our jobs, even though we had a house to pay for, and five children to feed.

One of our children, Daniel we adopted age one, is severely disabled and totally blind, so as you can see, this mission was a leap of faith.

1992 - October

Jacobs Well and Romanian Mission was born.

1992 - October

This was our first ever trip to Romania, We found a local church group who were going to a town called Zalu in Northwest Transylvania and tagged along. Angela at that time was a preschool manager in Gosport so she used her skills to stay for 10 days in the kindergarten showing the teachers how to play with the toys we had bought and to include the children. 

Orphanage

Kindergartens

1992 - October

Stuart used his years of experience in the building trade to fit showers, in an orphanage for handicapped children, they had been showering in awful conditions and could not believe it when they had hot water once we had finished……. bless them!
We came back home forever changed and just knew this would become our life’s work to help these people.We started showing photos in churches, telling of the awful things we had seen, and this led to us collecting aid from local people.
Our five children would tell you stories of house being full of aid and them having no space to sit! 

Kindergartens

Kindergartens

Kindergartens

We setup six or seven village kindergartens (Angela spent over a month in Romania when we set up the kindergartens, working with the teachers and parents)

Piggery

Kindergartens

Kindergartens

We built a piggery to help the villages become self-sufficient.

Distribution Centre

Distribution Centre

We bought a building and made it into a distribution centre so families could come along and get clothes, food, etc.

Christmas Presents

Distribution Centre

Christmas was delivering lorry loads of toys

Father Christmas

Handing out Toys and Food, dressed as Santa

150 Missions to Romania

150 Missions to Romania

We have always believed and still do, that we must be good stewards of what God provides.

It is important to personally make sure the aid gets to where it is supposed to go.

Since 1992 we sent lorry loads of aid to Romania on a regular basis - we have made over 150 Missions to Romania to provide Aid and Help.


All four of Stuart and Angela's children over the years have been on mission trips, and even some of there grandchildren! 

Other Missions

150 Missions to Romania

Charity Begins at Home

Throughout the 90s, we collected enough aid and raised enough funds to take out to fifteen surrounding villages.


  • Supplied psychiatric hospitals and three orphanages.
  • Set up a sponsor a family team.
  • Set up an Elderly people project
  • We opened a Chemist which still runs today.
  • We sent approximately six artics per year and a team of volunteers.

Charity Begins at Home

150 Missions to Romania

Charity Begins at Home

In doing this work we started to notice Gosport also needed help and firmly believing that charity starts at home, we also started work here.


More recently our long-standing friendship with Romania kicked back in when the Ukraine invasion struck, we were quickly able to establish contacts who could take us into Ukraine with aid collected from Gosport and the surrounding areas.

1999 - Moved to Gordon Road

 After a major looting incident where all the toys and clothes were stolen, the care centre moved to premises to Gordon Road in Gosport, our first charity shop, where we stayed for ten years enjoying fantastic support from the public.

2000 - 2009

2004 - Registered Charity

On the 1st June 2004 we became a registered charity.

2009 - Handing Over the Charity

New Management

Stuart and Angela Semi-Retired and  handed over the running of the charity to their daughter Lorraine.

2010 - 2019

2012 - Moved to Toronto Place

2012 - Moved to Toronto Place

2012 - Moved to Toronto Place

We relocated to a larger premises at Toronto Place.

2013 - First Food Bank

2012 - Moved to Toronto Place

2012 - Moved to Toronto Place

In 2013 we opened our First Food Bank

2020 - Pandemic

2012 - Moved to Toronto Place

Carry on our Mission

23rd March 2020 8:30pm


"You must stay at home" Who can forget those infamous words from the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

This is the day that the Government instructed the whole of the UK to be locked down.

Carry on our Mission

Carry on our Mission

Carry on our Mission

Being a Christian Charity, this was hard to to hear, but we complied and shut our doors on the 26th of March 2020.....but, that didnt stop us reaching out to the people of Gosport and carrying on our mission.

Food Demand

Carry on our Mission

Food Distribution

 Even though our doors where shut we were called into action by the local council, asking us to meet the demand for food for, the public who were either to afraid to go to supermarkets, or ordered to stay home on medical grounds. This saw us purchasing ,making up and delivering food parcels weekly. 

Food Distribution

Carry on our Mission

Food Distribution

  We had closed our main operations and store, but set up a food distribution within our family bubble, with volunteers on the side lines.
As restrictions where lifted we eventually reopened the foodbank and then the store. 

4000 Food Parcels

2020 - New Bigger Food Bank

2020 - New Bigger Food Bank

  We Delivered over 200 food parcels each week to the public. All together we delivered over 4000 parcels of food during the national lockdown 

2020 - New Bigger Food Bank

2020 - New Bigger Food Bank

2020 - New Bigger Food Bank

   During the Pandemic with our Doors shut, we had been building...and when we where able to, we opened the doors to our new Food Bank (The Store Cupboard) 

2020 - Present

2022 - Russia Invades Ukraine

On Thursday 24th February 2022 Russia Invaded Ukraine - we held an emergency meeting and decided we needed to help. We contacted our Romanian friends - We had 1 Baptist church and 1 Christian children’s summer camp as primary contacts.

28th February 2022

Our contacts where already actively supporting hundreds of refugees as they fled across to Sighetu, on the Romanian/Ukraine boarder.

Sighetu was perfectly situated to offer help being only 300 meters from the boarder.

1st March 2022

We posted on our Facebook page and invited the evening news to drum up support locally and beyond. Starting with a couple of boxes,.....to being completely over run from floor to ceiling.

2nd March 2022

2nd March 2022

We had to close our daily charity operations in order to accommodate the huge influx of aid that was coming in by foot, van and lorry every 10 minutes.

3rd March 2022

2nd March 2022

3rd March 2022

A local garage and Gosport council lent us buildings to store the vast amount, it was a mammoth task, and at times we wondered what we had started.

4th March 2022

2nd March 2022

3rd March 2022

Sorting through the thousands upon thousands of boxes bags, but we soon had a military style operation set up and over 150 volunteers locally came along to spend their time helping.

Boxes, clothes, first aid, toiletries, medical supplies, bedding, pushchairs etc. 

4th March 2022

4th March 2022

4th March 2022

Our community in a crisis is unlike any other and every single person, group, Doctors, chemist church, charity, Gosport council ,police, fire service, schools, all stepped up and donated funds, or helped us to pack/sort donations and load artics, truly amazing.

5th March 2022

4th March 2022

4th March 2022

All the clothes where ready in white bags with tags on....in English and Translated into Ukraine

5th March 2022

4th March 2022

5th March 2022

Boxes, tagged and ready to go

7th March 2022

5th March 2022

Transportation Day

Three vans and a trailer (fully loaded) - with 6 Volunteers ready to go


1 Artic ready to be loaded with Aid

7th March 2022

Aid Trip 1


Missionaries: Stuart, Paul and 4 Volunteers

Destination: Northern Romania


We set off with three vans and a trailer loaded up with aid.

Myself and my son Paul driving in one van and volunteers in the other vans six of us in total it took three days to arrive at our destination in Romania.


A very emotional trip a we saw first-hand the masses of families fleeing their homes in Ukraine. It was distressing to see the families, woman and children only as the men had all stayed behind.

We did find comfort in the support the Romanians had set up churches, changed into refugee centres with beds in every corner.

Tuesday 29th March 2022

Aid Trip 2


Missionaries: Lorraine and Stuart

Destination: Northern Romania and Southern Ukraine


Lorraine and Stuart flew out to meet the artic, which had left a few days before us. We spent our time delivering the aid into the Ukraine villages and network of churches with the Romanians.


Lorraine and I visited both the summer camp and the Baptist church in Romania, which had been transformed into make shift refugee centres. We met and had meals with the Ukraine refugees, listening to their stories were both surreal and heart breaking.

We arrived back in the UK on Saturday 2nd April 2022

March 2023

Aid Trip 7


Missionary: Ian

Destination: Northern Romania and Ukraine (Donbas Region - War Zone)


Ian's trip into Ukraine took him to the Donbas region with Pastor Ovi from the summer camp and his son. They delivered aid to the soldiers on the front line.

Throughout the Summer of 2022

Visits continued throughout the summer 2022 from Gosport (Jacobs well) to sigutt Romanina 

We roughly sorted loaded packed and transported an articulated lorry of aid, every two weeks. This aid was destined to be split half a load to the summer camp and the other half to the Baptist church both in Sighet, they distributed into Ukraine where it was needed.


Our manager Ian and I Visited to meet the lorry in Romania on this occasion in summer 2022 we were stopped from going into Ukraine at the border. Therefore, we left the aid with the Romanians who took it a few days later, we returned home to Gosport.


We will continue to support both the Baptist church and the summer camp for as long as we can and they need our help.

They are dedicated men and woman of God and they believe in Gods protection over the work they do, but your prayers are needed for them as they put themselves in ever more dangerous situations to assist the people of Ukraine in their hour of need.


We have sent Approx 83 tons of Aid to Ukraine

November 2022

When Ian and Stuart went to Romania in 2022, they bought £1000 of food. (It is sometimes easier and cheaper to buy the food there, rather than buy and transport it from the UK) This was then destined for the Roma camp. Ian and Stuart where then helped by a guide to deliver the food to the camp.



2023 - Launch of new Website

2023 - Launch of new Website

2023 - Launch of new Website

Our New Website (jacobswell.charity) was launched

2023 - May

2023 - Launch of new Website

2023 - Launch of new Website

In 2023 may the charity were told by our landlady of 12 years she was selling the building once our tenancy ended in May 2024.

This came out of the blue and was a very nerve-racking time for us, many of you donated to a fund we set up this raised £1,500 thank you so much for all your support whoever donated to this, it means so much to us.

The Asking price was huge and seemed impossible to us.

2023 - June

2023 - Launch of new Website

2023 - June

We thought about fundraising (someone even had the crazy idea of swimming to the isle of wight) but most of us are either to old or to disabled for such a quest, we thought of asking the public for help, but this goes against what we try and do at the charity as we understand more than most the hard times people are facing ,so this option was ruled out, we approached and hassled  any councillors we could find from all political sides ,approached  our local council, even did a press release,  but nobody could offer us solutions only directions of someone else to contact. None of us have any rich friends or families, we thought about the national lottery, but this goes against our ethos.  we exhausted all avenues, even looked at renting other properties none of which suited us either too small too expensive or wrong locations.

We prayed a lot over the months trusting that if God wanted the work to continue, he would find a way were we couldn’t.

2023 - July

2023 - November

2023 - June

Just the thought of moving the 100 or more storage boxes, the foodbank, the furniture literally had us in tears at times .. (I mean we all love a mission ..but that takes the biscuit ! ) 

We tried banks for loans, they didn’t want to know as we are a charity, then by chance one of our Trustees in a moment of clarity or madness suggested we tried a Christian bank he had heard do great things for other Christians called Kingdom Bank, and at the same time another lovely local charity closed and decided to transfer us their remaining funds!

2023 - November

2023 - November

2023 - November

Kingdom Bank told us to make a few adjustments to change our income and they would help us to get a mortgage!  Andrews words to us “You need to own your building to carry on the work you have been doing for Gosport, let’s see if we can help you " finally it felt like someone believed in us.

2023 - December

2023 - November

2023 - November

Sometimes we felt helpless, and that the charity may have to decrease in size, our 12 staff would have to look for new jobs and our lovely volunteers lose their purpose. But with the for-sale signs still up outside and the occasional potential buyers still turning up to look at our building, we persevered jumping through every hoop thrown our way. I now feel like I am some sort of financial deal closing wizard and probably know more than I want to about legal paperwork.

2024 - April

Friday 19th April 2024

Friday 19th April 2024

” ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR THE GOODNESS OF THOSE WHO LOVE GOD, TO THOSE WHO ARE CALLLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE “ (ROMANS 8V28)"


With the guidance of an amazing solicitor and kingdom Bank we did it!!

Friday 19th April 2024

Friday 19th April 2024

Friday 19th April 2024

On the 19th April 2024 we purchased our own building - We are not going nowhere ……all glory to God 

We would like to thank our loyal customers who have  donated items ,visited and purchased from our shop as this is how we pay our way and can carry on with our Missions.

  • The Team
  • Trustees
  • Vacancies

Jacobs Well Care Centre

Toronto Place, Gosport, PO12 4UU, United Kingdom

Phone: 02392583050

Copyright © 2023 jacobswell.charity

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