News from Heart of Newhaven

Welcome to your June Newsletter, which seems to be mostly about money.

While we wait for the decision on our Scottish Land Fund application for the necessary funds to buy the Victoria School site, expected now in July, the board has been busy organising and collaborating on various projects, all of which have secured much-needed funding.

Architect-led community workshops

Top of the list comes the £8,000 grant from the Lottery Fund’s Awards for All. This is contributing to the architect-led community workshops which we hope to announce later in the summer. These aim to bring community users together with our chosen architects to discuss how to use the building flexibly for the benefit of all. Planning Aid Scotland will be facilitating the workshops to ensure that this helps create a truly effective, multi-generational and age-friendly environment that meets the needs of the community.

It is heartening to know that the National Lottery looks favourably on our project, as shown by the comment from the National Lottery Community Fund, Scotland Chair, Kate Still.

“In these unprecedented times,” she says, “it’s heartening to see the way Scottish communities are coming together to provide each other with support. I would like to congratulate the Heart of Newhaven Community on their award which is testament to the incredible efforts of their staff and volunteers. National Lottery players can be proud to know that the money they raise is making such a difference.”

Pots of Newhaven Kindness

Another project to benefit from funding, this time £150 from Food for Life, is the Pots of Newhaven Kindness, run in collaboration with Victoria Primary school and Pilmeny Development Project.

Once again, it is all about bringing the generations together, with children sowing and decorating pots with edible plants and flowers and then gifting them to the elderly. The project aims not only to teach youngsters where food comes from but also to create lasting relationships between them and the elderly or isolated within the community.

30 pots were created with the children paired up with the recipients, half going out to elderly residents within the Newhaven community and the other half remaining with the children at Victoria Primary School. Once the Heart is established, it is hoped to arrange regular, celebratory get-togethers between the children and the recipients, all around the theme of food.

Mental Health Awareness Day

Finally, there has been another award, this time for £500 from Edinburgh’s Thrive Arts Programme, to go towards the Heart’s contribution to Mental Health awareness. This once again will be an inter-generational project, in collaboration with Men of Leith’s Shed, Pilmeny Development Project and local artist Johnathan Elders.

Friendship benches will be designed and created with help from the Men’s Shed while Johnathan will help local children draw up designs to decorate them. The finished products will be ready by World Mental Health Day in October and placed in the school playground.

Men’s shed find actively working in the local community improves men’s mental health. Older people have lost confidence in going out of their homes. Younger people have also struggled with isolation from friends and those of all ages outside restricted ‘bubbles’.

The benches will be safe places to talk to each other and they will remain as a lasting legacy to be enjoyed over the years to come by people of all generations visiting The Heart.

Does money make the world go round? Well it certainly helps!

Remember to keep updated between newsletters by visiting our website and various social media platforms and remember you can aways get in touch with the board if you have ideas to suggest or help you can offer.