Upper Room Gets Funding to Expand Headquarters

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Given £5,000 after winning competition sponsored by Jewson

Shepherd's Bush charity The Upper Room is celebrating after winning funding to help expand its headquarters.

Members of the public voted to back The Upper Room - which does essential work helping hard to reach members of the community – when it applied for funding in a competition sponsored by builders’ merchants Jewson.

The charity, which works with homeless people, ex-offenders and other disadvantaged residents needed the cash in order to upgrade its facilities at St Saviour’s Wendell Park Church.

“We are delighted that our project was selected by Jewson as one of the winners,” said The Upper Room’s Michael Buraimoh.

“We have been awarded £5,000 with the promise of additional donations of building materials to come. We would like to thank all our supporters who voted for us and canvassed on our behalf.”

The Upper Room applied through Jewson’s Building Better Communities program. Its current home is on the mezzanine level of the 1970s church which limits the amount of space for essential facilities.

At present, a single large room is used as a dining room, computer room, training room and office. There is also no reception area, no confidential space and nowhere to host activities.

The funding will help build a new mezzanine within that room creating enough space for those services. The new floor, running the full length and depth of the current room, will provide space for a toilet, training room, storage and desperately needed private 1-2-1 rooms.

“This is an excellent result and shows that local residents clearly value the work of this very worthy charity,” said Cllr Sue Fennimore, H&F Cabinet Member for Social Inclusion.

“The Upper Room provides great opportunities and support to some of H&F’s most vulnerable residents and improving their facilities will help further the superb work they do.”

The refurbishment would double the floorspace, creating an open-plan main office with dedicated reception area.

Judges for the competition took into account the innovative ways in which spaces would be used as part of the criteria for making their decision.

August 7, 2016