A team of Foxy Lady volunteers gave up their valuable time and helped to transform the hallway landing and lift area of the Creative Heart Community Hub in December 2019.
The inspirational ladies behind the community hub, Claire and Fliss, have been working tirelessly renovating what was the old Tamarisk Centre building in Littlehampton. They took on the building in a state of disrepair, it had been left empty for many years , It had been vandalised on several occasions which meant holes in the roof and the build up of damp and mould was off the scale. This didn’t deter the ladies, they set about renovating and decorating with the help of the community. Different organisations donated time or items to help get the project going.
Fliss and Claire had a vision “Creative Heart will be a love filled, not for profit, vibrant community hub and arts café. We aim to be a safe and genuinely inclusive space that tackles loneliness, inspires creativity and improves emotional, physical and mental wellbeing”.
The hub will be funded through sales in their homemade food café and by renting rooms and spaces to businesses and organisations. Their progress has been incredible not only through their own creativity with resources and items donated but from the generosity of others. Fliss told us they have only had to buy a pot of paint and a few brushes to date. It is heart warming to see and hear about how the community has pulled together on this project.
They hope to open in April and have facilities available ready to go like a library, childrens play area and IT suite. Hot desking, community group rooms, creative arts room, and of course the wonderful café will also be available. The other areas they are working on and aim to roll out soon will include a hoist for changing disabled people, chapel and a laundry room for rough sleepers to wash clothing and bedding.
The Foxy Ladies team got involved after hearing about the project and decided they would like to try and help the scheme along a bit further. We donned our best painting overalls and brought our own rollers and brushes and got stuck in with sanding down washing and painting the upstairs hallway.
It was great to be able to make a difference and there was lots of chat and banter whilst we worked hard. We came away feeling pleased that we had helped albeit on a small scale but left with the promise to return and help further.
We had a date booked to return in March 2020, to help them clean the ground floor ready for opening but unfortunately this has had to be postponed due to the Corona Virus outbreak.
We are committed to helping this project and will return when viable. For more information please see http://creativeheart.org.uk/
