Help keep Firstsite Fantastic, Fun and Free
Click the video below to find out why we need your help
You can also text to donate.
To donate £5 text “FANTASTIC” to 70085
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Your support will make a difference
As a charity, we rely on donations from visitors and purchases from our shop, café, and cinema, so that we can support our community and provide the best art, culture and creativity for everyone.
The impact of shutting Firstsite during the lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 was huge, for us but also for the communities we work with.
Thanks to supporters like you, we were able to create and distribute our “Art is where the home is” packs to people across the UK, including 15,000 people shielding, and launch The Great Big Art Exhibition, both projects helped to build a creative community which continues to support people’s well-being and mental health through art.
When we were able to reopen in July 2020 we worked to continue to help people from our communities and create new exhibitions and experiences to inspire and support us all as we face this changed world. This continued throughout lockdown 2 and 3, and now that we are open once again we have been working to bring even more amazing experiences to help people reflect, relax and reconnect.
The costs of closing and reopening on 3 occasions really had a drastic effect on Firstsite, it is only thanks to the generous support of our fabulous funders and donors that we have been able to continue. We now have a long way to go to regain our lost income whilst creating new and exciting exhibitions and events and continuing to support our community. Which is why we need your help more than ever.
Your support, no matter the size, can help us to provide inspiration and connection for our community at this difficult time.
Our mission is to improve the wellbeing and life chances of people in our community through creativity, ingenuity and innovation.
We have 3 core programmes which help us do this:
First for Art
We bring world-class exhibitions to East Anglia, producing nationally significant projects with some of the world’s best artists, including Antony Gormley, Lubaina Himid, Grayson Perry and Gillian Wearing – always for free, always for everyone
First for Community
We collaborate with our community to curate projects and exhibitions – bringing all different people together to create experiences to inspire, unite and empower us all.
First for Fun
During the school holidays we run our Holiday Fun programme – changing our restaurant into a school canteen so we can provide thousands of free meals to families in need.
This project is designed to help children and their care givers stay happy, healthy and tackle social isolation.
So far we have provided over 22,000 meals, and welcomed hundreds of families to our gallery for the first time, where they have also taken part in free art and sport activities.
During the Lockdowns
Our Art is where the home is activity packs have helped people stay creative all across the UK. And thanks to the local NHS, these have been distributed to 15,000 people shielding in our community.
Our building also became a distribution centre for Community 360, helping them to provide essential food and supplies to local people shielding during the pandemic.
In Lockdown 3 we launched The Great Big Art Exhibition to fire everyone’s imaginations once again and bring us all together through the power and positivity of art and creativity.
Help us continue our workPlease help us continue this work and so much more...
Using our imagination to support our wellbeing and stay connected and healthy is vital.
We are focusing on three things to help our community:
- Expanding our canteen service so even more people can access our free meals, and run this for as long as it’s needed in our community
- Collaborating with the NHS to enable people affected by Covid-19, including front line NHS staff, to recover and build resilience
- Working on more ways for you to access and benefit from incredible artworks
We are determined to keep these three projects running but we need your support to do this.
Please consider a donation, of whatever you can afford, and know that by donating to us, you can help even more families in need access free meals and support from our Holiday Fun project, and help more people to experience the benefits of art and culture so that we can all find creative solutions to the world we find in front of us.
Together we can ensure art and creativity is here to help our community become stronger and more resilient than ever.
Please help keep Firstsite fantastic, fun and free. Thank you.
If you are a UK tax payer, Firstsite can claim Gift Aid on your donation, which means an additional 25p for every £1 on all donations. Simply complete the Gift Aid declaration when you donate.
If you would prefer to donate offline, find about all the different ways you can donate to Firstsite here
