With the winter now thankfully a distant memory, we have been reflecting on the usage of our community hubs as warm spaces during the colder months.
The warm hubs ran from five of our hubs – Ronkswood Hub on Canterbury Road, Warndon Hub on Shap Drive, Tolly Hub on Rowan Avenue, Horizon Hub on Midland Road and The Green Hub on Gresham Road in Dines Green – from October last year to March this year and included a mixture of volunteer led and partnership work.
During this time, an estimated 578 individual households were reached. Approximately 2,000 hot meals were served, including at our 60+ Snack & Chat lunch clubs and our community kitchens. 900 cups of tea and coffee were distributed, and Warndon Community Church hosted 35 coffee mornings. Several people were also supported with one-off payments from an emergency fund.
A number of small funds were gained to support this work including a £2,500 grant from Worcestershire County Council, a £5,000 emergency fund from Worcester City Council, a £1,900 donation from Councillor Cookson for ‘Tea at Tolly’ – a weekly community kitchen run from Tolly Hub and £1,500 from the Western Union, plus £5,000 from Citizen Housing, £500 from Councillor Desayrah and £500 from Shri Guru Ravidass Temple in Wolverhampton via Worcester Grassroots Alliance for a community kitchen at Warndon Hub.
Jon Newey, CEO at Worcester Community Trust commented:
“As we progressed through the winter, we quickly realised that our warm hubs were not just about providing warmth away from the cold. Whilst it did give people the opportunity to save on energy and food bills, it also gave people a chance to socialise and reduce feelings of loneliness.
“As we have moved into the warmer months, our hub spaces are still open and in use by members of the public. Several of the initiatives created during winter such as the community kitchens are still running, and we have recently gained four tablets from the Hive which will be available to give people digital access. We still have teas and coffees, and access to WiFi, phone charging and books available and we are also still running our community fridges at Ronkswood and Tolly. We are also exploring how to enliven our informal open spaces for even more community led activity.”
We have several community activities running from tour hubs over the summer months for all. To keep up to date, visit our What’s On page here.
Photo: Ceri Grant, WCT Wellbeing Services Manager serving soup