Whiting Bay and Kildonan Church Warm Room

We are a group of volunteers from Whiting Bay and Kildonan Church who recognised the need for a warm space in our community and decided to utilise a very much under-utilised hall to be used as that Warm Room. We were given permission from the trustees of the church for this so we decided to open from 10am until 3pm on Mondays and Fridays. We went looking for free comfortable settees, chairs, cushions and side tables to get set up. We allocated a corner of the hall as a servery for teas, coffees and snacks during the day and homemade soup and filled rolls at lunchtime.We got some donations of wool and knitting needles, jigsaws, board games, books, magazines and toys.Our Warm Room has become very popular and is well used, not only by people from Whiting Bay but from other areas of the Island as it is the only one on Arran. Our Vision is to expand the days the Warm Room is open so that more people can come and to offer more food options. We would use money raised to buy what is needed to enable us to do  this and to pay for electricity. Community impactIt’s important to explain the wider impact of your organisation for the whole community, who does it benefit and why? I am the locum minister of the church and my team includes elders and members of the church. We recognised that there were people in our community who were concerned about the rising cost of energy, especially here as there is no mains gas on the island and people have to use electricity or oil to heat their homes. Food is also much more expensive on the Island and we knew that some would have to chose to heat or eat. We opened our hall two days a week as a warm space to help people save on their energy costs and food and this has been a great success. We need money to continue what we are doing and to build on this as we are the only warm space on Arran and there are people coming from other villages to use the Warm Room. We cater for all ages from babies to old folks, all are welcome. It is worth noting that we have two homeless men who come on both days and tell us that coming along here is their lifeline. Why are we crowdfunding? This is where you should explain the reason you need to raise money. How is your organisation or community impacted by the cost of living crisis? We need to raise money to continue, and to expand, the service we are giving the community. Everything on Arran is more expensive than it is on the mainland and people here are really impacted adversely by the cost of living crisis. This is predicted to get much worse when the prices of fuel rises again in March.  How we’ll spend the money raised. It’s important to be transparent about how you plan to spend the money you raise. Your audience will be more likely to make a pledge if they can see how their donation will help. We will use the money raised to open the Warm Room another day each week and to pay for the heating of the hall and to pay for food and kitchen white goods.