Sitting in a huge warehouse in St Werburgh's lives a creative haven that even the most active of environmental activists could only have wished they had dreamt up themselves. Celebrating 40 years in existence, the Children's Scrapstore is a registered charity which seeks to encourage creative play and educational activities through the reuse of unwanted materials - and their mission is to 'make waste things play things'.
The charity was set up by Avon Friends of the Earth in 1982 at their base in Brislington with the aim of diverting waste materials from landfill and reusing them, all with the added benefit of supporting community groups. The warehouse began its life in Bedminster and moved three times in its first twenty years, but those in charge of the Scrapstore now say that each move has been used as an opportunity to grow and, by increasing membership and developing its services, it's now in its own forever home in St Werburghs.
There are actually around 60 Scrapstores and similar projects around the UK. All are independent organisations with different resources and different access requirements but they all work on the same reuse principles.
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If you've never heard of the Scrapstore and didn't know one existed here in Bristol, the charity basically collects waste materials destined for landfill from businesses in and around the city and offers them to member groups who support children and adults via workshops, education, activities or therapies. The scrap materials have to be clean and safe in order to be reused for arts, crafts and play items and staff at the Scrapstore say that the vast range of materials they acquire is a huge surprise for customers.
Cara Hayman, who works at the Children's Scrapstore, said: "One person's waste is another's treasure and we have a warehouse full of treasure! Our Scrapstore Warehouse contains an ever-changing selection of unusual low cost resources.
"Many of the things we have you simply just can't get elsewhere as they are production offcuts or by-products. It's fantastic to see what's been saved from landfill being reused and getting a new lease of life as a creative resource, because they aren't your traditional arts and craft or toy so it leads to lots of imaginative creativity."
Cara added that the team at the Scrapstore found that many of their members wanted other arts and crafts products to use alongside the scrap materials and so the ArtShop was opened to the public, with all proceeds going to support the charity. What's more, the Play Team at the Scrapstore was also formed to support the development and delivery of the PlayPod project, which is designed to help improve play in schools at lunchtimes for all children and even the entire school community, by providing loose parts for play and training.
The Scrapstore PlayPods have been opening around the country since 2007 and began with a two-year Action Research project funding by the National Lottery. Cara said: "The Scrapstore PlayPods are a huge success and now we support other organisations around the country to deliver the project in their own local schools.
"We have also developed a variety of different products and services to support settings to further develop play opportunities for children and these include Visual Play Audits and bespoke training sessions. And events in the Scrapstore encourage creativity, experimentation and child led play.
"We offer regular activities for both children and adults at the Children's Scrapstore in our purpose built playroom. We can also offer bespoke workshops and activities either here or at another venue, and Children's Scrapstore birthday parties are proving very popular - we're now taking bookings for next spring."
The Scrapstore was also a key lifeline during the Covid-19 pandemic and was tasked with making activity packs for both adults and children, to support wellbeing. The team made a variety of packs using a carefully curated selection of materials from both the warehouse and the ArtShop and, during the first lockdown, they had a team of 75 volunteers who worked alongside staff to produce a total of 2140 activity packs overall.
The Scrapstore also remains part of the government's Holiday Activities and Food programme, supporting children with activities and food during school holidays. The team are currently working alongside Unique Voice and the Children's Kitchen to prepare winter activity packs for the Christmas holidays, with each pack set to go out to a child along with a parcel of food and a recipe book, spice pack and measuring cups from the Children's Kitchen.
The Play Team are also running on-person outreach activity sessions in Lawrence Weston, Oldbury Court and Meadow Vale, which you can find out more about on the Your Holiday Hub website, here. The surplus income from all of the Scrapstore's activities enables the charity to offer free community events, too.
It runs a monthly free Super Saturday event in connection with St Werburgh's Community Centre and St Werburgh's City Farm, where families can get involved in free activities. Cara described it as "a place to share ideas, learn new skills and gather confidence to incorporate reuse into the way that we live, shop, build, furnish our homes and make art". The next one will be on Saturday, September 16, 2023.
"A gold mine"
When it comes to how the Scrapstore has changed in the 40 years it has been around, as well as how the way its members have used it, Cara said: "Over the years we have seen a reduction in the number of community groups that are members with us, mainly due to the reductions in funding from local and national government meaning many of these groups no longer operate. Covid greatly impacted the number of activities and workshops that took place which meant that lots of our regular customers just didn't need us during that time.
"Thankfully the activity packs helped to tide us over and we are now seeing lots of people returning as more and more of the groups begin their work again. Our scrap is a really low-cost resource which means, with everything else going up in price, we can offer good value to our members and support them at this difficult time.
"We've worked very hard to maintain our 20 per cent discount for members in the ArtShop and not raise membership prices so we can support our members who are struggling financially. Last year we introduced a Supporter Plus card for people that aren't eligible for membership so that they can also access scrap resources.
"This has proved very popular and we are glad to be able to support individuals and families with their creativity too." According to the Scrapstore's comment book, customers over the years have called it "a gold mine", a "new favourite place" and dubbed the Scrapstore Warehouse "the magic room".
Cara went on to say: "Personally, I really love being part of the Children's Scrapstore team. As a small friendly team we all get involved with lots of different things, so every day is different.
"We've always helped make a difference to the people of Bristol through supporting our members and their amazing work, but more recently we've been able to have a more direct impact through our activity packs and sessions. It's a great feeling knowing that the work you are doing will be helping provide creative and play opportunities for the children and families who need it the most.
"We've loved seeing the little children coming to messy play and then, as they get older, coming for our holiday sessions for older children. And we were delighted to find out that one of our newer team members had a Scrapstore PlayPod at her school and enjoyed playing with the scrap at lunch time."
How you can get involved at the Children's Scrapstore
Here's everything the Children's Scrapstore offers, as well as ways you can get involved with the charity:
Scrapstore Warehouse - A large warehouse full of varied, colourful and abundant scrap materials for creative play opportunities at low costs. You need to be a member or have a Supporter Plus Card to access the Scrapstore Warehouse.
Membership – The Scrapstore runs a membership for people that work with children or adults in an educational, play, creative or therapeutic setting, are a home educator and students. It gives them access to the Scrapstore Warehouse and a 20 per cent discount in The ArtShop.
Supporter Plus Card - If you don't qualify for membership, don't worry - the Scrapstore has a Supporter Plus Card to enable anyone to access the wonders of its scrap. Simply buy a card for £10 which gives you six visits to the Warehouse to get your hands on up to a basket of scrap each time for the usual donation of £6 per basket.
ArtShop – The ArtShop is the arts and craft shop that is open to everyone and provides a wide range of products. All proceeds from the shop go to the charity.
Events – The Scrapstore runs messy play sessions for Under 2s and Under 5s. In school holidays it runs a full programme events for children of all ages. It also has regular adult art club workshops, runs parties in its purpose built playroom and can also facilitate workshops for children or adults at Children’s Scrapstore or at your venue.
Schools/play services - The Scrapstore offers a range of participatory training programmes including its renowned Scrapstore PlayPods and consultancy to schools and early years settings advocating and supporting the development of play.
Volunteering opportunities for adults – Volunteers work hard behind the scenes from sorting and organising scrap, to supporting staff across multiple departments. There are regular weekly volunteer sessions throughout the year and the need for extra volunteers at particular times of the year - volunteers are currently needed to help pack the winter activity packs between November 7 and 24.
Donating business waste- The Scrapstore collects business waste and is always looking for new items of scrap. This service is free and the team divert around 200 tonnes from landfill each year. Items they collect are wide-ranging and include production offcuts and by-products, rejected quality control batches, bankrupt and redundant stock, bulk quantities of unused raw materials, components and packaging.
Donate your unwanted things – The team are always looking for the following domestic items which get used for children’s play: suitcases, pushchairs, soft toys, pots and pans, computer keyboards and home phones, fancy dress items.
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