Craft classes entertain 3,000 Peterborough children with free activities during summer holidays

A Peterborough retailer has hosted 50 days of free summer holiday activities for 3,000 city children.

The free arts and crafts sessions were made possible thanks to a sponsorship between retailer UNITY and Bourne Skip Hire who pledged £5,000.

The partnership meant that 3,000 children could take part in activities such as vegetable music workshops, macrame, lyric writing, DIY wormerys and clay modelling, among many others.

‘Truly amazing’

Kez Hayes-Palmer, co-founder of Up The Garden Bath and UNITY, said: “We hate the thought of charging parents to provide children’s activities, which is where our friends at Bourne Skip Hire supported us to make this all possible.

“Between us, we have used the space at UNITY, inside our Queensgate store, to do something truly amazing and beneficial for our community, to help ease the cost of living and cost of parenting.

“As an organisation, education is one of the pillars of what we do.”

Chris Seggie, managing director, BSH Recycling Bourne & Peterborough, added: "At BSH Recycling we’re proud to be sponsoring Up The Garden Bath and supporting their important work in educating the next generation about sustainability. Our commitment to recycling and reducing landfill aligns perfectly with their mission."

‘Parents were amazed’

One of the classes even saw youngster, Collette, win an art competition and her sunshine pelican design is now on sale at UNITY with the six-year-old collecting all the proceeds from her sales.

“Some days there were upwards of 100 children inside UNITY enjoying our fun activities,” Kez added.

“Parents were amazed this was a service we could offer and we ran out of leaflets on the first day.

“It reinforces what Up The Garden Bath stands for and we are already planning our Halloween activities, which we’d love to help team up with potential funders on.”

Last year, the eco-group took part in Kids Kingdom events, which Up The Garden Bath supported through planting activities, in North Square.

Though this was the first time UNITY were able to provide classes of this size in their own store.

UNITY's story

Up The Garden Bath initially launched their educational community interest company to upcycle unwanted bathtubs into flower planters and spread joy across the city.

But co-founders Dave Poulton and Kez Hayes-Palmer were plunged into their retail journey just shortly after lockdown hit, as the pair had to think on their feet about staying afloat.

The duo created eco-friendly fabric plant pots, made from recycled material.

After selling 2,000 items, generating nearly £20,000 in sales and seeing their idea go viral, the idea was put forward for a prestigious Small Business Sunday award - backed by Dragons Den former panellist Theo Paphitis - which the team won.

The buzz around the zero-waste idea, which sees the product fold inside out from envelope to plant pot, saw Up The Garden Bath approached by Queensgate Shopping Centre management and the pair were invited to fill an empty pop-up store.

Fast forward four years and the UNITY enterprise now has a thriving Queensgate Shopping Centre store and has helped to generate sales of £330,000 for 100 local businesses who are located in a 25 mile radius of Peterborough.

Fifty independent local traders now stock the shelves of the UNITY store selling homemade creations.