A Flax Corn Dolly on Blockhouse Park 2023

Last year we delivered a Flax Corn Dolly on Blockhouse Park. We’d like to do this again in April, building on the success of last year’s event, with a series of corn dolly workshops leading to a spectacular finale. We want to reach all parts of the community, bring us all together into the heart of the making and the ceremony. Release the spirit of the nature into the soil and reconnect with our ancestors traditions! The event will lead in to The Village Hub’s Feast and Ceilidh taking place that evening in Stoke Youth and Community Centre.

Stoke JarSquad

JarSquad’s goal: grow a solidarity economy whilst making communal preserves (and more!) as a squad. In collectively cooking up our shared abundance (of surplus, grown, or foraged food), we spark a rethinking on what we might value/waste/share.

Our idea: develop an offer of creative consultation, community coaching and organizing to get local groups to start their own JarSquad. Working with The Village Hub and their community pantry, we’ve identified a budding food-passionate group in Stoke we’d like to collaborate with, via a series of food-making and food-preservation sessions that centre our ethos of joy, connection, co-learning, sustainability and resilience.

Affordable Youth Residential’s

We have a passion to transform the lives of young people by giving them an opportunity to make memories and challenging them to see their full potential. As part of our project, we run residential trips, one each school term. Including an extra trip in the summer holidays. However, the disadvantage of these trips is that they can become a financial burden for some families, due to the cost of living crisis this has become more apparent for even more families, so we would like to gather funding to help relieve the financial burdens, allowing all young people to attend.

Motherland seed

Individuals from the disperse background have been meeting and sharing the experience of growing edible plants and herbs of their origins either in grow bags or on a pallet. the purpose being to build rapport with the new soil and community their are established in as well as sharing their motherland with their homeland. The need of a a space representing motherland is crucial into healing and belonging. healthy conversation and shared experience are on high demands.
we are seeking the fund to develop the scheme and engage with more community members from diverse background.

Daily Cause to Pause @ Care Nest

Supported by Global Plymouth, Care Nest (at its new premises in Millbay) aims to run Daily Cause to Pause sessions in which local adults (20 max) can rest for up to 2 hours in silence within its friendly, cosy, and safely-held space. Rules: NO shoes / food / talking / devices

Those who stay will be invited to capture and share anonymously their experiences by mark-making on paper, which may be collated and researched in the future via Global Plymouth.

We know this is an urgent need for many through our years of working closely with local individuals and organisations.

£4 Budget Cinema Ticket for Unwaged or Low Income

The best way to watch a film is to make it an event and see it on the big screen, with an audience. We don’t want people to break the habit of coming to the cinema because they can no longer afford it. We introduced a £4 Budget price (full price £9) in a trial from 1/10/22 to 31/1/23. We sold 241 Budget tickets and welcomed 58 first-time visitors to the cinema. Plymouth Live named PAC as one of Plymouth’s kindest businesses for this initiative. We’d love the chance to make it a permanent offer and develop it further.

The Kit Bag Project – Is five a day all we need?

Funds acquired will be used to implement our new innovative program which is underpinned by nourishing and educating children and families about the importance of ‘not just’ consuming the five recommended fruit and vegetables a day, and will be delivered through primarily non- referral foodbanks to target the cost of living crisis & holiday hunger including the stigma.
Moreover, the program consists of the promotion of the other five core messages and ‘promoting immunity in the community’ (see below)
1. Hand washing
2. Mental health
3. Nutrition
4. Exercise
5. Climate change (the 5 Rs)

Genie Gym; exercise classes with childcare attached

Improving access to a healthier lifestyle and improving the wellbeing of individuals by providing childcare during exercise classes to remove barriers for parents. A series of classes will be run, while children are looked after within the same building (for example, by utilising 2 rooms in the same community centre). The aim is to provide access to classes that would otherwise be out of reach for parents who cannot afford them, and who do not have anyone to care for their children. Exercise improves mental health and by improving the wellbeing of the parents, the children will also benefit.

Get Crafty

Our current popular weekly craft day offers a safe, warm space for people to meet, share stories, develop friendships and connect through art and craft. We want to add a Saturday craft workshop aimed at families. A shared activity creates a lasting memory, brings people together and gives the mind a short break from the pressures of the current cost of living crisis which is affecting us all. We do not want to pass our increased costs on to people already feeling the pinch. Funding would enable us to offer these sessions free of charge to all.

“Not on my own”

Improving wellbeing and enabling people experiencing homelessness to reach their full potential and thrive.

Homelessness is a devastating, isolating, lonely experience linked to physical and mental ill-health, poverty and occupational deprivation. Building upon grassroots efforts, user feedback and participatory research, this project will be managed by Plymouth Soup Run in partnership with Plymouth Alliance members, Plymouth Access to Housing (Path) and Shekinah, plus the Health Inclusion Pathway Plymouth (HIPP). It will target people who are homeless or in transition, (e.g. from rough sleeping into accommodation, from addiction to recovery, from hospital admission and treatment to discharge), providing personalised support to tackle economic and practical obstacles to leading healthy, meaningful lives, and building sustainable futures.