Donate your time and/or expertise
Get Involved at The Sewstainable Barn
Join our mission to give unwanted fabric and sewing supplies a second chance. There are lots of ways to get involved and help us keep creativity, community, and sustainability at the heart of everything we do.
Volunteer Your Time
We love welcoming volunteers to The Sewstainable Barn! There are several ways to get involved, and you don’t need to be a sewing expert — there’s always a role to suit every skill level.
1. Join Our Volunteer Mornings
Volunteer mornings run every Tuesday and Thursday, from 9:30am to 1:00pm.
We coordinate via a WhatsApp group, helping volunteers stay as flexible as they need to be. Please note that we sometimes pause volunteer mornings over Christmas and in August during the school holidays.
Most sessions involve working together in the Barn’s workshop making up scrap packs and DIY kits for our online shop, or sorting donations in our Sew It Again room. Whatever the task, it’s always about chatting, laughing, and enjoying mindful, creative activities in good company.
2. Volunteer to Run the Barn for a Day
Find a friend and sign up together to run the Barn for one day a week — or even just on occasional weekends.
If you prefer to volunteer on your own, that’s absolutely fine too. We can pair people up to run the Barn together. It’s important to have two people on duty so the Barn is always covered — especially when someone needs to pop for a wee!
Our aim is to keep the Barn open 7 days a week, from 10am to 4:30pm, as many visitors travel a long way to find us and are disappointed if we are not open. Being reliably open makes a huge difference.
Training is provided, and the commitment is designed to be manageable.
We’ll schedule your volunteer days well in advance, and our small staff team will cover any days you can’t do.
Your duties will include:
- Opening the Barn and putting out the signs
- Welcoming customers and showing them around
- Helping visitors find what they need
- Taking payments
- Receiving donations of unwanted fabric and sewing supplies
- Sorting donations as needed
Bring your own lunch and a sewing project, and enjoy a peaceful, creative day in the beautiful and inspiring Sewstainable Barn.
3. Join Us as Our Administration Volunteer
If you enjoy organisation, admin, or behind‑the‑scenes work, this role might be perfect for you.
This is a flexible position — you can come in at times that suit you — and you’ll support some of the important administrative tasks that help the Barn run smoothly.
Your tasks may include:
- Processing emails from people who want to join the Friends of the Barn Bulletin
- Writing up sales into Excel
- Helping with practical jobs such as checking that all products are priced correctly
You’ll work mainly with Fritha, one of the co‑founders of the social enterprise behind the Barn, Secret Projects Community Benefit Society. It’s a great opportunity to support the Barn in a meaningful way while gaining insight into the day‑to‑day running of a community‑driven social enterprise.
4. Donate your expertise
We’re always excited to meet people with skills to share. You might help us develop new products, test new ideas, or run one of our expert sewing sessions or drop pins or Sew Together Days at the same time as using our wonderful collection of donated fabrics and sewing supplies. If you’d like to offer your expertise or creativity, we’d truly love to hear from you.
I am keen, what next?
To let us know you are keen to get in involved, please come into the barn and ask for Fritha or email fritha@secretprojects.org to start the conversation.