We built this community centre on donated desks!

Two GoodGymers, Paulin and Paulin met Patricia and Sunder from L&Q at their new community centre near South Bermondsey station.

They called upon GoodGym to help re-construct 12 desks that were kindly donated. They also needed our help to move some planters from one end of the courtyard to be placed closer to the entrance on the courtyard.

When we arrived at 10:30, Sunder had already made a start with the first two desks as he showed Paulin and Sam what needed to be done. Amongst the three of them, they constructed a system where Sam would lay out the desks on its back to place the legs in position. Paulin would put the bolts in place and Sunder would come in with an electric screwdriver to fit in the bolts properly. Whilst we promoted and talked about GoodGym and Sunder giving us the background to what L&Q do, the session whizzed by as we managed to construct all the desks and add the final touches within 30 minutes! We thought the task would take an hour and a half!

Yet, there was still the other task at hand. Noticing a few planters being too heavy to move by hand, Patricia brought over a hand truck for us to lift the planters and move from one end of the courtyard to be placed closer to the entrance to give a more pleasing aesthetic.

With 45 minutes left on the clock, Sunder and Patricia showed us around the property highlighting that the kitchen was new and they are looking for occupants to take on the cafe. Paulin and Sam thought of someone and thus proceeded to take photos to pass them along to another GoodGym contact, who runs a social enterprise. We shall see what comes about!

Thanks to Patricia and Sunder for letting us help out and great to have L&Q as a contact. I am sure there will be more community missions in the future!