Community market stall in Southend High Street launches

A new initiative to help charity and community groups in Southend raise awareness of what they do has been launched today.

Joining a wide selection of traders at the weekly market in Southend High Street is a new community stall, organised by Southend Association of Voluntary Services (SAVS) in connection with Southend Borough Council.

The community market stall will host a different charity/community group each week, allowing the charities and groups to provide information about the services they offer and how people can get involved.

Southend Council has offered the stall in the High Street market held every Thursday, as a way to help the local voluntary sector raise awareness of the services they offer.

SAVS has over 330 community groups so demand for the stall has been high resulting in it being completely booked every Thursday until mid February.

Alison Semmence, Chief Officer at SAVS, said: “We were astounded by how quickly the rota for the stall filled up. Within days we had 50 groups booking in. We are extremely grateful to Southend Borough Council for this opportunity.”

A selection of the groups making use of the community stall over the next few weeks are: Active Life, Southend Volunteer Centre, Turning Tides and Abbeyfield Society.

SAVS is an independent charity helping other local charities and community groups achieve their full potential by offering training, advice, ideas and information for the charity sector. To find out more about what they do, visit: www.savs-southend.org