The Nest: Community and Well-being hub in Hastings

Aim

We need your support to create a vital mental health, well-being and creative therapy centre in Hastings Old Town.

Eggtooth urgently needs your support so that we can move into our new home: The Nest.

What is The Nest?

The Nest will be a vibrant community hub, housing the many elements of The Eggtooth Project. We are delighted to have secured a lease for the historic Hastings Old Town Hall and have big plans for the building. We have already raised enough money to transform the ground floor into an alcohol-free bar (the first EVER in Hastings), cafe and creative event space, where we will offer high-end barista, bar and front of house training to young people with barriers to employment. We plan to pioneer a nurturing and well-being focused approach to employment training, while hosting the best that Hastings has to offer with live music, spoken word, podcasts, movie nights and visual arts. 

The upper floor, however, is the part that needs your donations. This space will be home to our bespoke therapeutic service, The Egg.

The Egg focuses on improving mental health and well-being for our whole community, through a variety of different therapies and creative activities. With the widest range of therapeutic services locally available, The Egg provides tailored experiences to all sections of our community. Subsidised and fully funded therapy places are available for those with low or no income, because we believe that therapy should be accessible and affordable for all. 

Your donations will help us create the confidential, safe environment our clients (and practitioners) need. We will be developing a group therapy room, a one-to-one therapy pod and a well-equipped art therapy space. The upper floor will also house our Core Team’s office, the beating heart of The Eggtooth Project.

Why is The Nest needed in Hastings?

In 2019, Hastings ranked as the 13th most deprived local council area in England, with 26% of our local children living under the poverty line. We know that poverty is intrinsically linked with mental health, and that high fees and long waiting lists can prevent the people that need it most from accessing support. By offering funded and subsidised places, as well as a quick turnaround for appointments, we have removed this financial barrier and created a service that can really support the community that we live in.

Raising the money to refurbish our upper floor and create therapy spaces is crucial for The Egg service. For over a year we have been operating without a dedicated venue, and our specialist practitioners are having to use multiple spaces to host sessions. This leads to inconsistency for clients, and the practitioners can also feel disconnected from the team. 

The lockdown has been challenging for everybody and certainly put a strain on our collective mental health. We have been working tirelessly throughout the Covid-19 pandemic to bring The Egg to the virtual world, offering our variety of services online, but we know (now more than ever) how important it is to be able to connect in person. 

Where will my money go? 

Money raised through this Crowdfunder campaign will go towards:

• Refurbishing an existing room on the upper floor to create a Group Therapy Space
• Creating a Therapy Pod for one-to-one sessions
• Forming a dedicated Art Therapy space, to host our hands-on creative therapies and activities
• Building secure partitioning to separate the cafe/bar and office from the therapy spaces, allowing for complete privacy
• Improving access to the upper floor from the rear of the building, which will allow clients to attend their sessions without having to enter the bar area
• Vital refurbishments to the office’s bathroom and kitchen 
• A lick of paint throughout!

Any excess funds raised will go towards fully funded therapy and activity placements at The Egg.

Check out the link below to find out more about our brilliant Eggtooth team.

www.eggtooth.org.uk/about

This project successfully funded on 11th August 2020