As we lugged rubble and swept leaves, the thought crossed my mind about just how much effort and work it must take to keep Unit 12 going.  

The community centre, in Winnall, has many rooms, occupied by different groups or businesses.  

It’s got halls, dance studios, a community pantry, café area, food bank and more – providing a base for many start-up businesses or organisations that help the community.  

We are at the community hub for our annual volunteering day, and as the sun is actually shining, we have taken the opportunity to tidy and prepare the garden for winter. Who knows it might even be one of the last nice days of the year.  

The centre is run by Lara Tarrant who juggles a million different balls to keep the place going.  

Its website says it's on a ‘mission is to create a volunteer led, not for profit, community hub to deliver positive social impact with a sustainable business model whose activities benefit the community through our family of likeminded organisations.’  

As the focus is usually on the inside, keeping that ticking over and making sure all the many different groups and organisations that use it are happy, the garden can sometimes get a little overlooked.  

It’s a really nice space too, with enough space for people to sit or children to play games, and an area with raised beds to grow vegetables.  

Down the side of the centre runs a path, with veg beds on one side, but that’s where we are helping to clear space for a new shed to be installed.  

Hopefully, Lara says, this will hold tools and equipment to make the garden more attractive to users and help volunteers who diligently turn up every week to help keep it nice.  

We also help put together a compost bin, with the dream that food waste from the centre will be able to be recycled and turned into compost to put back on the Veg beds, a virtuous circle.  

We are joined by two other ladies who regularly volunteer at the centre. One says that she missed having a garden after downsizing to a flat, and when she saw that Unit 12 needed helpers, she jumped at the chance and has not looked back.  

She says that as well as helping a good cause in the community, it’s good for her mental health, it helps her get some vitamin D, and keeps her active.  

The other lady says she used to work in a rose nursery and has a passion for gardening, so was also only too happy to help out when she saw an ad looking for volunteers.  

We are there on a Friday so the centre is busy, especially with food pantry customers, who are helped by the centre’s offer of £15 worth of food a week for the lowly price of £6. 

Elsewhere people are coming in for dance classes, as the centre has a range of professional high-quality studio rooms for hire from an affordable price of £15 an hour.  People use them for classes, workshops, rehearsals, training, parties, weddings, meetings, seminars and more.  

Lara says they hope that people will start booking them for weddings soon too, especially as the garden becomes even lovelier.  

As we work, sweeping leaves and generally tidying up, Lara comes out with a cake – handily donated at the pantry - and tea.  

She’s been busy inside – one of the toilets needed attention, a grant application needed writing and two people needed showing around.  

There’s not one minute that we see Lara sitting down, she’s flitting between everything and everyone, making sure that everyone is happy – and with such a large building, it’s any wonder that anyone has any time for the garden too.  

Unit 12 really does provide a great service for the Winchester community – a flexible community centre providing a space for all ages, abilities and walks of life to meet and learn or to develop new skills. We felt incredibly welcome at the centre and would recommend that if you have any spare time, then get in touch to see if you can lend a hand too. 

Could you be a volunteer with the Unit 12 Community Pantry? 

We are looking for people who could spare just a couple of hours per week to help with this vital community food initiative in Winchester. 

We need help with: 

Collecting food donations (especially evening collections) 

Assisting customers 

Sorting clothes 

Sorting food 

Helping with fundraisers 

Just a few hours of your time could make an enormous difference to members of the Winchester community. 

Email us at ccp@unit-12.com or find out more at www.unit-12.org/community-food-pantry