The Ormlie Hub (360G-SCVO-a133z00000LRaLRAA1)

At present our service/community centre is only open on weekdays. This funding would enable us to open at the weekend. This is what is needed for the community and people we support. Funding would allow us to expand our service delivery and pilot a new innovative creative project within a warm safe hub at the weekends. We would provide a warm lunch; soup and sandwich at a small cost. We receive donations from our local Lidl, some of these donations could be used towards making healthy lunches. The Community Centre has 3 rooms which are warm and offer a variety of opportunities. Attendees would have access to free Wi-Fi, digital devices to ‘surf’ their social media accounts, online shop and/or order medication etc., play pool, darts, board games, benefit from our garden with fresh veg and develop gardening skills if they wish. We also have a quiet area, where someone might wish to sit and chill/read but know there are people nearby if they wished company. We would encourage participation from the service users to create the food menu and make the lunches. To involve partners, we will have discussions with all the partners we are already working closely with, NHS, Health Visitors, Housing, Mental Health teams, Social Work, DWP and 3rd sector agencies; Citizens Advice Bureau, Caithness Voluntary Group, Caithness Klics, Care and Learning Alliance, Thurso Youth Club, Fisherman’s Mission and Connecting Carers are a few of the organisations we work closely with. Through consultations and face to face discussions we would seek their views, but most importantly we would seek the views of the people wishing to attend. All plans for the pilot project would be created around the identified needs and wishes of the planned attendees. We will create posters to distribute through statutory and 3rd sector agencies also Schools (they share all our group information through class DOJO). Also share our information/posters to our FB page and other social media pages Here for Caithness, Thurso Community page and Caithness Voluntary Group who have a huge digital mailing list. This enables us to reach a wider audience. This e3xciting project would help when tackling poverty and social inequality, as the attendees could save on energy costs for their home for the period they attend groups. We would support the attendees to access Benefit entitlement sites to ensure they are receiving their full benefits, share with them all new and relevant advice and benefit information received from Housing, DWP and other agencies. We are a referrer to our local Food bank. Encourage people to engage with CAB who have expertise in accessing energy grants and financial support. People already have weekday access to the donations we receive from our local Lidl to open at the weekend would enable us to provide a 7-day access. All of the above is to assist and support people of all ages and abilities to manage the inequality they are experiencing.