Like so many other organisations, Making Space adapted to delivering online services during lockdown.  We got onboard with the Art Council’s Let’s Create campaign and created Craft Kits for our local community.
We spent summer 2020 assembling special Craft Kits for families using the local food bank. We wanted to help Leigh Park families get creative and have fun at home.
The Craft Kits are part of the #LetsCreate campaign and were supported by Arts Council England via Artswork the South East Bridge. Making Space also received funding from the Tesco Bags of Help COVID-19 Communities Fund. Investment from both of these funders have contributed towards our time, the materials & resources included.
Our first 30 Craft Kits included: coloured felt sheets, coloured and plain white card, bundles of colourful wool, colouring pencils, a drawing pencil, a rubber, pencil sharpener, felt tip pens, a gluestick, a pair of scissors, a watercolour paint tin and a paintbrush! We also included creative activity suggestions sheets and some templates for the families to use.
Phase two saw a much bigger and more complex development. Using money from our Arts Council Community Engagement project we made up 350 Craft Kits for children who received free school meals at six local primary schools; Riders, Sharps Copse, Trosnant, Front Lawn, Barncroft and Warren Park.
We expanded the project even further and delivered several hundred more craft kits to homeless charities, hospices, care homes, rape crisis centres and more!
