Boost Fund Stories: Sanday Community Craft Hub, Orkney
Sanday Community Craft Hub, Orkney
The Boost Fund is delivered by Corra Foundation and is a partnership between STV Children’s Appeal, Comic Relief, and Corra Foundation, and is supported by players of Postcode Lottery. Boost is currently open to applications and provides small grants for community-led organisations across Scotland supporting local people affected by poverty or disadvantage.
We opened the Sanday Community Craft Hub in 2017 in a temporary building to see if our idea of having a local place to sell local crafts would work. In fact, it did so well that the following year we had to sort a larger, more permanent property and managed to rent an old disused shop for a very small rent. It needed a lot of renovating, so we slowly did this with volunteers over the following 2 years, then covid struck and we closed. During this time, however, we managed to secure funding to actually buy the premises, so when we could re-open in 2021 we were raring to go and we have never looked back!
We provide a place for local artists and crafters to sell their work – we have over 70 contributors now! We also have a small cafe which sells locally prepared food and a workshop area where we run courses. We employ three part time staff, a relief helper for the cafe and have a team of eight residents who are directors on our board. All of our contributors in some way also volunteer, be it manning the sales floor, washing up or doing small repairs. We will be celebrating our 10th year next year!
We applied to the Boost Fund in order for us to facilitate workshops centred around the main theme of sewing, to help folk not only mend, but also repair their clothes and household items. It is also designed to reduce loneliness and isolation amongst the community during the winter months when it can be particularly difficult.
We have sourced some new sewing machines with the funding in order to increase the amount of participants we can teach, and have created a programme of workshops planned for the beginning of September. As well as basic sewing machine lessons, the programme includes making zero-waste garments and household items and teaching mending and fixing skills. We are keen to highlight the potential with fabric scraps and upskilling the community for simple fixes that will increase the lifespan of garments and other items, with a focus on sustainability.
All the sessions will be free of charge in order to combat poverty that affects a lot of the community and the workshops will encourage groups to form with a shared interest.  The Boost grant allowed us to run these workshops free of charge, again, important to us so that affordability wasn’t an excluder.
Many thanks to Sanday Community Craft hub for their story!
www.facebook.com/sandaycrafthub
sandaycrafthub.com
Boost is now open for applications at www.corra.scot/grants/boost-fund/
