We all, each and every one of us, love a big, bold and bright New Years’ Resolution; but these can be tricky to follow through on.
Whether you’re looking to get more active, make positive changes for your health, or simply give more to support all the good around you, whatever was grandly pronounced at midnight January 1st can be easily forgotten by January 31st.
That’s why we’re foregoing resolutions this year: we’ve come up with something better. A new, improved type of resolution: sleeker, chic-er, and easier to keep.
We’re calling them:
New Year’s Reso-Lewishams
Your New Years’ Reso-Lewisham is all about being more involved in your community around you, supporting the vital organisations working hard to help people across our area, and improve wellbeing by creating new connections.
Volunteering
We love volunteering – it’s the building blocks of a happier, healthier Lewisham. We know from our work fostering connections between people and organisations that the benefits cut both ways.
People find volunteering rewarding, energising, and good for their personal wellbeing – while organisations really value the added helping hands and smiling faces!
Lewisham Local is on hand to help. We keep a Volunteer Opportunities board, where local groups can post urgent vacancies they need to fill to carry out their work. This is the best place to find all the volunteering opportunities around Lewisham.
It’s updated regularly with new opportunities from around the borough of Lewisham, so do keep it bookmarked and check back regularly.
You can find our Volunteer Opportunities board here.
Invest in a Lewisham Local Card
The Lewisham Local Card helps to support Lewisham’s thriving small business scene, support good causes in the area, and keeps you connected to what’s happening around you.
Volunteers in the borough get one for free (yet another easy win for lovely, lovely volunteering!); but anyone can buy one for only £10.
Funds from the card help Lewisham Local operate all of its 19 projects, including Good Food, Warm Welcomes, Volunteering Support, and the Wild Cat Wilderness green space; as well as supporting our grants programme for small organisations across the borough.
The card you will receive will be the size of a normal credit or debit card, perfect for wallets and pockets, rather than giant like the one in this picture.
The card is positively brimming with local benefits, including discounts at shops, restaurants and cafes across the borough.
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- Babur 38% off main course
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- 10% off Bottled Cocktails & Infusions at Bottle Bar & Shop
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- Free Swimming Wednesday and Saturday at Beckenham Place Park
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- 15% off Short Courses at Goldsmiths University
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- and more than 500 more!
Find the full list of discounts here.
Donate to Local Causes
Lewisham is packed full of amazing small organisations doing really important work – and one of the easiest ways you can support them is by sending them a donation to help them manage their costs.
Here are some causes to consider:
Food Projects – Find your nearest food bank, hub or pantry, and ask them what they need. It may be money, stock donations, or volunteering time – all will appreciate your help, but needs will vary from project to project.
Lewisham Donation Hub – Collecting and organising donations of all kinds, (food, clothing, toiletries, electronics, cooking supplies) which are then then shared directly with those facing hardship.
Lewisham Bank of Things – A Lewisham Local project, addressing poverty and lack of resources for young people facing hardship in the borough by providing needed goods and supplies for education, hygiene and general wellness. You can donate to the project, or Lewisham Local itself, here.
Get Active
If your New Years’ Resolution involved getting fit, or just getting out and stretching your legs a bit more, your New Years’ Reso-Lewisham could be the perfect complement.
You don’t need an expensive gym membership to get out and active this Spring GoodGym Lewisham is a local group who do good by organising a variety of practical tasks to help out community projects or older people in the area. This could be gardening, odd-jobs in the home, or helping with clearing and tidying.
Wild Cat Wilderness is a community green space in Catford, and welcomes eager green fingers and horticultural hands to come along and muck in. The space has also welcomed corporate volunteering team-building days, if that’s more your speed.
There’s a lot of community litter picking groups popping up in Lewisham, providing an opportunity to make a big difference in a social environment in a short amount of time. A new group has recently formed at the Corbett Library in Catford, meeting on Fridays then convening for soup after.
Finally, you’ll be able to find mental health & wellness walking groups around the borough. Blokes Club CIC offer a well-attended and much-needed space for men to walk together and chat in the evening – building social connection and breaking stigma around mental health.
Give, However You Can
Donations doesn’t just mean money. Time and skills are just as valuable, and can offer more back to those willing to share what they can spare.
Consider Time Banking this year. The idea is simple; if you give time to help, you receive as much help back. ‘Help’ can mean a lot of things – befriending someone, mending things, or sharing skills and knowledge. The Rushey Green Time Bank has been running for more than two decades now, and offers a warm social community filled with long-standing friendly faces.
Time Banking builds up social networks of people who give and receive support from each other, empowering people from different backgrounds and facing different challenges to weave their abilities together to become more resilient and connected.,