Give The Bentham Hub a new home
Donation protected
The Bentham Hub, one of the most successful community charity initiatives in Craven, has to move. We have the chance to buy the Bentham Community Centre, the former home of the Pop Up Pantry and Bentham Youth Club, to secure a long-term future for this much-needed community initiative. We need your help to do so. When our campaign started, we needed to raise £35,000 for the purchase of the building. We are thrilled to say that we raised that money in just three months thanks to the generosity of the public. We are now in Phase Two of our campaign - to raise an additional £10,000 to help with the costs of making the building fit for purpose.
The Bentham Hub, in the heart of High Bentham, is run entirely by volunteers. We sell second-hand goods for the benefit of others, and in just over a year we have raised a staggering £43,650 to help fund charities in our area.
Due to circumstances beyond our control, we have to move from our main premises and so we need to raise £35,000 to buy the Bentham Community Centre on High Street (for current total, see above). Currently empty, this building has been at the heart of Bentham since its construction in 1864 as a Quaker Friends’ Meeting House. The funds we need to raise would help us secure the building, supported by some of our own funds, and undertake some initial repairs to make the building fit for purpose. It would be a wonderful new home for The Bentham Hub's fundraising activities and a real asset for our community.
The brilliant Bentham Hub concept was set up in June 2022. The Hub comprises a large second-hand shop selling everything from crockery to curtains, shoes to shawls and much much more. In December 2022 we opened The Bentham Hub Too, a bookshop selling high-quality second-hand books, games, jigsaws, DVDs and CDs, in a separate premises. The Bentham Hub Too also is the home of our children's room selling high-quality items at low prices. We never anticipated the amount of money we would raise for local charities and the benefits we would deliver to the community.
In a short space of time, The Bentham Hub has made a significant financial contribution to local charities including:
- High Bentham Playing Fields
- St John’s Church Family Room
- Bentham Dementia Group
- The Bentham News
- Northwest Air Ambulance
- The Bentham Pantomime
- Longstaffe Educational Trust
- Community Link Cafe, Low Bentham
- The Goodenber Play Area
- The Victoria Institute, Low Bentham
- Bentham Community Allotments
- Bentham Youth Club
- Pioneer Projects
- Bentham Friday Lunch Club
We have also:
- helped develop a culture of recycling and reusing in the local community
- helped revitalise Bentham high street and provide a focus in an area of little footfall
- become a place for people to meet and chat at the heart of the community, which is vitally important for people's wellbeing
- stopped a huge amount of items going to landfill
- reduced Bentham’s collective carbon footprint
- brought together a huge community of volunteers who, in turn, benefit in many ways from their involvement
- helped scores of customers save money in these financially challenging times
The Bentham Hub has quickly become the beating heart of community action and mutual support in our town, and a fantastic example of what can be achieved when we come together. We want to continue this vital work and secure our new home so that we can continue to raise money for our community. Imagine what we could raise in the next 10 years (and more) if we have raised £43,650 in just over a year. Please help us raise these much-need funds and help us buy this building for the community. Thank you so much!
For more information about us, please visit our Facebook page at
Organizer and beneficiary
Jill Franklin
Organizer
England
Lesley Barker
Beneficiary