Leaders at a community cafe and arts space in South Bristol are celebrating after reaching their £230,000 fundraising target to save the building and its future with just three days to spare.
The future of Zion Bristol, a community-run centre and arts hub, was in doubt after the owner of the building said they would be selling it, but gave the centre six months to raise the funds to buy it first. The minimum amount required to halt the sale and give the community hub a chance of survival was an ambitious £230,000 by August 5 - and with just a couple of days to spare, the target has been reached this morning (Tuesday, August 2).
In an update, Zion founder Jess Wright said they'd reached the magic 100 per cent of the initial £229,300 target, but were now continuing to fundraise to renovate the building once they've bought it. The community in South Bristol came together to back Zion's shareholder campaign to buy the building and save the community arts cafe, which was founded 11 years ago.
Read more: All about Zion Community and the project to save it
People were invited to buy shares in the centre so the building would be truly community-owned, and 348 people stepped forward to invest as little as £50. At the start of June, the fundraiser had only just passed the £100,000 mark and at the beginning of July, former Bristol mayor George Ferguson backed the project with £5,000 of his own money.
But even at that point, the fundraisers were still only three-quarters of the way towards their target and needed to raise more than £60,000 in just four weeks. Jess announced they had hit their target today, and thanked all those who had supported the cause.
"Massive thank you to everyone who invested, shared, spread the word, popped in for coffee and cake, kept our spirits up, helped out and shared this journey with us in any way at all," she said. "We are a fantastic community and what we've achieved is absolutely amazing and a testament to you all!
"We've reached 100 per cent but we're not done yet. Thanks to this amazing achievement we can now work towards our stretch target which will help us to carry out renovations to better adjoin the existing hall to the new space created from the residential property. We look forward to having you on the next stage of our journey," she added.
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