Our goal is simple. We want to create greener, healthier, more financially stable, connected communities.
We’re already feeling the effects of extreme heat/cold, flooding and food price rises all across the UK. The climate is changing. We are all affected by its impacts on the cost of living and our health day-to-day.
At our Community Hub we share advice, skills, equipment, resources and activities to help visitors improve their environmental impact, while boosting their health, financial stability and community connection at home, school, work, and in our wider communities.
With over 1000 visitors a month, we have become a valued and relied upon community asset supporting people of all ages, needs and backgrounds. Our Hub is a space for building connections between people and sharing skills to enable us all to live more sustainably, healthier and cost-effectively.
We need your help.
We already have more than 25% of our interactions with individuals from traditionally underrepresented communities, who also tend to be more climate-vulnerable.
We know we can - and need - to do more.
Our learnings so far show we can do more to support local needs and engage broader demographics, balancing sustainability with creating community and improving peoples’ wellbeing and finances.
We also know that many other communities would benefit from our Hub’s Blueprint, which we are working towards, to help them most effectively leverage vacant units for a Community Hub - putting the heart back into their shopping centres and high streets.
Your contribution will enable us to:
- Help us keep going, grow, and reach different people.
Over 1000 people a month currently use our green Community Hub, a wonderfully positive and popular space. We plan for 10,000 new people each year to take a sustainable action, using any aspect of our Hub’s provision.
We’ll be able to reach new groups of people, meeting wider community needs. We will increase the range of workshops and other activities at our Hub to support more individuals and their needs.
We’ll be able to create new and engaging routes for sharing skills and knowledge and for collaboration on community projects. We will develop easier access versions of some of our products, self-service and online versions to meet the needs of different people. We’ll be able to deliver out in communities, not just at our Hub.
- Deliver creative ways for people who might not traditionally do so, to volunteer
We've recently created 5 new volunteer roles with lower entry requirements and simpler application processes to connect new people to projects, such as working at the community garden, a repair cafe, community ambassadors to engage, represent and support more vulnerable communities, and more.
We’re aiming to recruit 50 new volunteers each year, growing these roles and using recruitment as an opportunity to better engage and support under-represented and climate vulnerable communities.
- Support other community groups, charities and organisations to build sustainability into their organisation and activities
We will work with local groups, charities and organisations to build sustainable practices into how they operate, normalising everyday sustainability and providing collateral for them to use both for their own operations and also to support their beneficiaries going forward.
For example, we are already working with charities like Mencap and South East London MIND, co-designing accessible, fun and useful workshops. Some focussed on community gardening - teaching participants how to grow food and native species of other plants to improve biodiversity, reduce costs and benefit their wellbeing.
We want to do more, enabling others to use our best practices to suit their own organisations.
- Build a Blueprint for this new style of Community Hub
Establishing a guide to best practice will allow similar Hubs to be set up in vacant units of shopping centres and high streets across the UK. Providing our blueprint for success will help create greener, healthier, more sustainable and better connected communities across the UK.
Too Long, Didn't Read (TLDR)
In summary, our Hub is a space for building connections between people and skills to live more sustainably, more cost-effective, and healthier lives.
We empower everyone who visits our Community Hub with skills, advice, equipment, space, connection, community and other resources. We share our learnings around accessible and inclusive engagement with other communities, charities and organisations.
We want more people to benefit from this vital service and that’s where you come in. Donations to our crowdfunder will ensure we’ll support more people than ever before with sustainable living advice and skills workshops while helping them improve their cost of living, loneliness, creativity, mental wellbeing, practical life skills and community resilience.