Easter celebrations at Dover church include a fund-raising event

Easter celebrations at a Dover church will include a fund-raising event to help those affected by the famine in Africa.

As well as marking the biblical Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday events, members of the Beacon Church, in London Road, Dover, are turning their faith into action to support the 16 million people who are on the brink of starvation in South Sudan, Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia.

Tea, coffee and light lunches will be served at Footprints @ The Beacon - the church's community centre near the junction with Beaconsfield Road - on Saturday from 10am to 12 noon in aid of the East Africa Famine Appeal.

The event will include an Easter Bonnet competition for children and adults, with prizes for the best, cake and gift stalls and face painting.

The money raised will be used to help those in desperate need of food, water and medical treatment.

On Thursday, from 12 noon to 1pm, there will be a reading of the Maundy Thursday story and prayers, and on Good Friday, from 2.15 to 4.15pm activities will be organised for children and their families in the church hall in Bartholomew Street.

The Easter Sunday service, at 10.30am, led by the Rev Gordon Newton, will include Holy Communion and at the end of the service a new mural created by church member Glenys Jeff will be dedicated.

Christians from all the churches in the town will be taking part in the Good Friday Walk of Witness through Dover town centre starting outside the Town Hall at 10am, and an Easter Sunday sunrise service at Dover Castle at 5.45am, organised by Christians Together in Dover.