3 minute read
SUNFIELD SHOP
COMMUNITY SOCIAL ENTERPRISE LEARNING
sunfieldshop
Advertisement
a ruskin mill social enterprise
A newly-opened Sunfield Shop in the late 1930s and a catalogue image of some of the woodenware that was made on site In June 1937, the Sunfield Shop was opened as a retail outlet for the many products that were made in Sunfield’s land-based and craft-based workshops. The shop was built into the wall of the walled garden and became a focal point for selling the community’s goods to the locals and visitors. These included furniture, woodenware, pottery, toys, cards, biodynamic vegetables, bread and dairy products. In the ensuing years, the shop took on various guises, including at one point, staff accommodation and, in more recent years, an art gallery.
When Ruskin Mill Trust took on the leadership of Sunfield School and Children’s Home in 2018, the shop’s potential as a community service, a social enterprise and a learning environment for our children and young people was immediately recognised. In early summer 2020, during the first lockdown, we took the opportunity to tentatively reopen the shop with an honesty box and an offering of fresh biodynamic vegetables from the Sunfield walled garden and nearby Vale Head Farm in Kinver (part of Glasshouse College). The young people we work with have had a hand in growing and harvesting much of this produce as part of their curriculum.
In August 2021, Sammy Wood, previously a teaching assistant at Sunfield, took on the new position of shop lead. Sammy has gone about rearranging the shop, upgrading its appearance and expanding both the range of products and the opening hours. The shop will now be open three days a week to the public, Sunfield young people and staff, and is stocking a range of items, including our homegrown biodynamic vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers. Alongside this we also sell ecological cleaning products and refills, organic dry goods (pasta, flour, cereal, teas, coffee), canned produce and a range of organic snacks.
What our students think
Sammy says, “Showcasing the work that our amazing children, young people and staff do every day to the wider community is important to me. I want the surrounding community to be proud of the fact that we are their neighbours and that our children and young people have the potential to contribute to their locality.
“I am also really interested in the shop being used as one of the steps in the young people’s curriculum; working in the shop will be an opportunity to explore serving and contributing to the community. The skills the young people are going to learn in the shop are going to help them massively in the future. Alongside weighing, measuring and counting, the students will develop retail skills, self-confidence and a sense of purpose from helping others. I’m honestly just really excited about being part of this chapter in Sunfield’s history!
“Many of the young people and staff have already been down to the shop to have a look, alongside lots of members of the public from Clent, Belbroughton and Stourbridge, and the response has been very good, all our visitors are excited by the project.”
We wish Sunfield Shop the best of luck in this new, exciting social enterprise!
By Sammy Wood, Shop Lead and Ed Berger, School Farm Manager
Above: Jacob buying some chocolate and being served by Sammy, Shop Lead; Ferdie on his way to do some shopping at the Sunfield shop; the shop interior
