Our Community Centre locked down in the middle of March and was closed until the end of July, when we were able to partially reopen to welcome over 30 local children to our Summer of Food and Fun, a programme funded by the Mayor’s Office for London in conjunction with Kitchen Social and Lambeth and Southwark Councils, which provided free freshly-cooked hot meals and healthy snacks, as well as a range of educational, creative and fun activities on Mondays and Tuesdays during the school holidays.
Shannon and her team from Simply Smiley Productions were on hand to lead the fun, and making imaginative use of hula-hooped measured social distancing managed to successfully manoeuvre their way through the government’s rules and regulations (let alone guidance and advice) much to everyone’s delight and applause.
We were pleased to receive grant funding to cover food and part of our costs. But we have been doing – and spending – far more than that grant covered. We are still crowdfunding and would welcome donations, however small. If you, your family, friends, neighbours or colleagues would like to contribute our Crowdfunder can be found here.
During lockdown we were able to make use of a small business grant from Lambeth Council to extensively redecorate the Centre and make necessary additional changes such as installing hand sanitising stations and an outdoor basin for handwashing.
Making the Centre Covid-secure so that we can welcome our community back is a massive task and we are approaching it with considerable caution, well aware of our responsibility to everyone and our limitations as volunteers. We have carried out careful risk assessments and will be asking all our users and visitors to comply with rigorous additional safety requirements.
In September we aim to open on three days a week for the All In Actors drama school and shortly thereafter to welcome back our Youth Club and other activities run by Active Communities Network.
We hope to be able to welcome most of our regular user groups back to KPCC Oval during the autumn but at the moment we cannot say when.
Until we can be sure that everyone will be safe, we are not yet taking bookings for parties, social events, sporting activities or conferences, or from groups whose attendees are likely to be from those in our community more vulnerable to Covid-19.
Thank you for your support – we look forward to welcoming everyone back soon!
