Be sure to have a look at THIS ARTICLE on a website for Volunteer Centres Ireland.  It profiles a community centre in Ringsend called The Anchorage that Serve the City have been very involved with over the last two years.  Not only have we partnered with Habitat for Humanity to send groups of their volunteers there, but we also continue to have a few of our own Serve the City volunteers going back on a regular basis to help with the construction of the new community cafe.  STC considers it a huge privilege to be counted as one of the many charity and corporate groups to have invested time and energy in the development of the centre.

Focusing their vision on the theme of “HOPE,” The Anchorage offer a creche and kids’ clubs to the surrounding community.  They also offer birds and plants for sale to the community with 100% of the proceeds going to support humanitarian projects in the developing world.  With the completion of the cafe in The Anchorage, space will be offered to the community for a comfortable place to sit and chat over an espresso (particularly useful to parents with kids in the creche), to host community meetings and other gatherings, as well as to provide computers with internet access.  A family resource/counseling centre is also in the works for future development.

Though it’s in a position to apply for a lot of funding from the government, The Anchorage has opted to rely on a wide variety of volunteer sources instead.  As a result, there are a lot of individuals, businesses, and other organisations across Dublin with a vested interest in the success and effectivenes of the centre because of their own volunteer efforts there.

Serve the City have high hopes that the example of The Anchorage will encourage and inspire many other community centres across Dublin (and the rest of Ireland!) to offer up their own development as opportunities for people to actively engage in volunteering.

The Anchorage Community Cafe

Tags: HabitatForHumanity, partnerships, volunteers