Damaged night stop brought back to life by volunteers

Volunteer Richard Allt, aged 31 and from Rochdale

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A group of volunteers have completed a project to refurbish the overnight stop at Sanctuary Trust on Milnrow Road.

The Sanctuary Trust Emergency Project (STEP) had previously been damaged by vandals who stole copper piping and left many of the room’s water damaged and unusable. Nine volunteers carried out the improvement work as part of the 10-week Rochdale Community Action Team (RCAT) run by Groundwork Oldham & Rochdale.

Team member Natasha Roche, aged 21, completed under-coating and high glossing of the woodwork throughout the project. Natasha commented: “Since taking part in the project I’ve increased my motivation to get up and do new things. I have found this experience motivating, enjoyable and sociable.”

Improvements to STEP involved bringing all three floors back to a habitable state. Alongside the refurbishment work each volunteer completed training courses and achieved an ASDAN Level 1 Certificate in Community Volunteering.

Team member Martin Woodland, aged 26, added: “Groundwork and the RCAT course has helped me a lot with training (health & safety, painting, manual handling, etc), given me a lot more confidence in working as a team and being able to help others.”

David Lackner-Smith CEO for The Sanctuary Trust said: “We have always endeavoured to meet the needs of the most vulnerable in society and we were devastated when this property was broken into for the copper pipes. This left the property flooded and needing a lot of renovation. We looked to claim on our insurance but because the property had been empty due to losing Supporting People funding, the insurance did not settle. This left us without the resources to complete the work to open the STEP project.”

David added: “The work done by Groundwork has been a real life saver. This enabled the project to open in February and accommodate homeless rough sleepers in one of the harshest ongoing winters we have experienced in years.

"We offer a big thanks to the volunteers and Groundwork for the high standard of work and to Crown for providing the paint and other materials.”

James Oldham, Short Course Leader from Groundwork, added: “The RCAT volunteers have faced some tight deadlines on the project and showed outstanding teamwork and eye for detail when completing the work. The success of this work has meant the STEP project has operated at 80% occupancy during these recent cold months. I could not be prouder of the contributions made by each team member.”