The Lewisham Local Community Contributor Card is an initiative of Rushey Green Time Bank designed to recognise the invaluable contribution people make towards improving our communities. It covers all types of time giving; whether it is traditional volunteering, time banking, befriending, and grassroots localism initiatives. Anything where citizens contribute their time to benefit each other and the wider community.
This free card gives access to a growing number of favourable deals from local independent shops and businesses who want to support volunteers - ‘community contributors' by acknowledging those who give their time and skills to benefit Lewisham's communities.
It is also about strengthening the local economy by encouraging more people to shop at Lewisham’s independent shops and businesses. Traders are signing up to the scheme to offer deals to cardholders, visibly demonstrating they are community contributors. There is a distinctive window sticker that features in the shop windows and market stalls of participating traders.
The word ‘contributor’ is an engaging one, and it also opens to the possibility of other kinds of contribution, or widening the conversation about time giving. The Community Contributor Card gives you something to talk about. Deep down it is about community and a collective commitment to strengthen our neighbourhoods.
The Community Contributor Card scheme is free to join for community organisations and traders, all they need to do is register their interest online, then we contact them to customise our easy process to their needs.
The name of Lewisham Local also encapsulates the vision for a thriving Lewisham where people will have a sense of identity and pride, not only about the borough but also locally, right where they live. A high-profile collaboration is shaping up to bring together the voluntary and public sectors, local businesses, communities and individuals. It will inspire people to give more towards Lewisham, encouraging a stronger sense of ‘place’ for those who live, work, visit and study in the borough.
Lewisham Local makes known the positive things already happening in the borough, and the Community Contributor Card is a tangible example of it. This approach will be used to invite people to get involved in their community and invest their skills, time and money into helping make Lewisham a great place to be.
For more information about the card scheme please check out Lewisham Local's website: www.lewishamlocal.org.uk Or contact Philippe Granger: [email protected]