Help us raise £50,000 to build the Green Barn, an all-weather space for environmental learning, wellbeing and community activities beside Edgbaston Reservoir.
Over the past seven years, we have worked hard to transform a derelict and inaccessible playing field next to Edgbaston Reservoir into a welcoming place where people can connect with nature, improve their wellbeing, learn new skills and spend time together.
The Green Barn is the ‘final piece of the jigsaw’, shaped by the ideas, experiences and aspirations of the people who use, care for and love the Nature & Wellbeing Centre, a shared vision for a community space which even more people can enjoy all year round.
You can find out more about the plans for the Green Barn here.
Why another building?
The Nature & Wellbeing Centre – home to the Red Shed – has become a much-loved place for so many people to connect, learn, grow and spend time outdoors. However, as more residents, community groups, families and schools discover and use the site, our spaces are struggling to keep up – we don’t always have the room to say yes!
At the moment, we lack a permanent covered building that allows activities to continue comfortably all year round.
Wet weather, winter conditions and increasingly frequent periods of extreme heat can limit current space usage. The Green Barn will replace our temporary structures creating a welcoming, dedicated activity centre where people can meet, learn, create and take part in community activities come rain or shine!
Our Red Shed Community Café has become the heart of the site, but it is increasingly stretched. It often needs to double as an activity room, limiting its ability to serve as a café and putting pressure on staff.
Crucially, the Green Barn will make our site more accessible and inclusive. It will provide vital shade and shelter for vulnerable people, children, older people, people with health conditions and those who may need additional support.
It will also provide an office for staff and volunteers – anyone who has been inside our current office in the Red Shed has probably seen how cramped we are!
We have planning permission in place, architects plans drawn up – we now just need funding to make it all happen!
The crowdfund target
We are seeking to raise £50,000 through our Green Barn Crowdfunder towards the construction of the building, the final phase of development at Birmingham Settlement’s Nature and Wellbeing Centre.
This crowdfund forms part of a wider fundraising effort – we have already secured £111,000 through the Pride in Place Fund and are actively pursuing additional support from trusts and foundations, social investment, fundraising events, corporate partners and our own funds. In total, we need to raise £450,000 to make it all happen!
And we think we can…but we need your help!
We are calling on you, our community, to be part of this journey with us.
Perhaps you enjoy visiting the Red Shed for a coffee, walking your dog on the field, coming to a yoga class or performing in the amphitheatre? Maybe your workplace has joined us for a volunteering day, you’re a funder, a project partner or a local business wanting to do more for the neighbourhood?
We invite you all to build the Green Barn with us.
Sponsor a piz-za the Green Barn!
At the heart of the Green Barn will be a unique community pizza oven and Birmingham-sourced brick chimney where people of all ages will gather to cook, learn, celebrate and spend time together. We hope it will become one of the most loved features, bringing neighbours together over shared meals, community events and outdoor learning.
Each brick will be engraved with a name or message of our Community Builders – the individuals, families, neighbours, organisations, groups and businesses who came together to make the Green Barn possible, creating a lasting legacy and reminder of the community that sit at the heart of the space.
Bricks can be sponsored by individuals, businesses, or by clubbing together as a group or even a street!
Once it’s built, our Community Builders will be the first to sample a Green Barn pizza at a special celebratory pizza night!
There are many other rewards available via our crowdfund page from a Community Pizza Day to complimentary room use and wellbeing workshops. All donations no matter the size are very gratefully appreciated.