The Treasury Mansfield

The Treasury is a a much‑loved hub for everything from Scouts to dance groups, Messy Church, and a local youth club. The building had seen better days, with large areas out of action, clutter piling up, and energy bills on the rise.

The project:

The venue was refurbished over two phases, each building on the other to transform The Treasury into a vibrant, welcoming space for the local community. The project delivered real impact, improving energy efficiency, helping them to reopen their community café, fitting new toilets, and giving the space a full refresh, boosting its usage in the local community and by even more local people/groups.

Phase 1 – July 2025 (funded by Morgan Sindall) 
Phase 1 gave the building a huge refresh. VIY worked with 18 community volunteers and 25 local young people to improve energy efficiency, repaint and refurbish the main hall, install new toilets, and help reopen the community café. Outside, volunteers tidied the garden and transformed the space, creating a brighter, more inviting environment for local groups.

Phase 2 – January 2026 (funded by Mansfield District Council via UKSPF)
Phase 2 built on this success, expanding the venue’s community impact. The café garden gained a timber shelter, fresh planters, painted walls, and a new café sign. Three side rooms were renovated to host activities or a potential food bank, and donated benches were restored, making the outdoor space welcoming and usable. This phase ensures The Treasury continues to thrive as a hub at the heart of Mansfield.

“Environment engaging, all staff helpful, friendly and on hand to help. Both myself and students have learnt new skills. The benefit to the venue is that we can see positive changes made from before to after. Would definitely recommend and do it again. Thank you. “

–Queen Elizabeth’s Academy

The young people:

A total of 52 young people aged 14–18 took part, referred by: Futures Mansfield, King’s Trust Mansfield, Mansfield Jobcentre Plus, Queen Elizabeth’s Academy, Switch Up Mansfield, and Vision West Notts College.

Accreditations:

• 50 achieved an Entry Level 3 City & Guilds accreditation (6 in Conduct at Work, 40 in Painting & Decorating, 4 in Carpentry)
• 18 achieved a NOCN Level 1 ‘Environmental Awareness and Sustainability in Construction’ accreditation

Progressions included:

• Toby, 18, has successfully secured a Painting and Decorating Apprenticeship with the Bell Group.

He was referred to VIY by Vision West Notts College and joined his first project with VIY in March 2025.  His second project was at The Treasury, Mansfield, where he took part because of his interest in the Environmental Awareness and Sustainability in Construction qualification which he achieved. Building on these experiences, Toby impressed during his trial week with the Bell Group (an experience facilitated via a VIY partnership) and was offered a full apprenticeship, which he is currently completing and really enjoying. More on Toby here. 

• 90% of young volunteers who took part in the project are planning to start or return to college.
• The remaining students are exploring employment opportunities or apprenticeships with support from our Progressions team.

• 100% of learners felt more confident about getting a job in the future as a result of the skills gained during the VIY project
• 98% of learners felt more aware of employers’ expectations due to VIY
• 82% of learners would consider a job or career in the building or construction industry due to VIY
• 88% of learners felt their overall feeling of happiness or wellbeing had improved due to volunteering with VIY
• 80% of learners felt their overall feeling of physical health had improved due to volunteering with VIY 

Trowell Community Centre

To help this community centre become a more central part of the community in Bellamy, we helped to free up their downstairs room and converted this into wider, more accessible space for the community in a more private space – to be used for coffee mornings, physical and mental wellbeing, benefits advice, as well as a confidential space for community meetings and complimentary therapies. All of these services were previously up a steep staircase, very inaccessible for some members of the public, particularly the elderly and those with disabilities.

We also helped to decommission part of the original building, previously a children’s toilet in this former children’s home, and convert this into storage space

In the year following the VIY project, we caught up with the team at Trowell Community Centre:

• Really enhanced what the building can deliver for the local community, broader discussions with health partners, to help build relationships and build trust for people who need it most
• Huge impact/improvement in social inclusion, loneliness, seeking advice
• Their food club has benefited hugely – the dedicated storage room storage has now become a small social supermarket
• Complimenting their work trying to take health & wellbeing services for the community to tackle huge health inequalities on Bellamy – which has no doctor’s surgery or pharmacy
• 6-8 key delivery partners use the space inc. food club, bingo, coffee morning, community events, social-prescribing, community college
• Kirsty, Health & Wellbeing Officer for Bellamy reported lots of health & wellbeing conversations are taking place where they were not before, as more people are accessing the venue through coffee mornings, the food club etc – this has led them to set up of a weight management group for local people
• Just walking to the centre for the wider services on offer has got people who were previously inactive to come outside and be active in some way – geographically isolated community
• They’re also talking about a couch to 5k and walking group, chair-based exercise, self-defence – a group who meets in the Trowell private room are also setting up a charity bike ride for Prostate Cancer 
• Others work in progress – working with NHS partners on outreach, smoking clinics, flu vaccines, health & wellbeing pop-ups all using the private space
• Beginning delivery of a diabetes support group/pilot programme for this diabetes-intensive area – all came from candid conversations with those in the community where diabetes diagnosis hadn’t happened or were under-supported
• They’re now developing a volunteering impact report as part of this updated delivery from this centre following VIY’s improvements, looking at how they’re contributing to the NHS prevention agenda, community cohesion, reasons for volunteering etc

Urban Heard

Vibrant Warsop Methodist Church

Wembdon Village Hall

West Earlham Community Centre

Westminster School

Westminster School, based in Rowley Regis, selected a VIY project day with funding from the Careers & Enterprise Company virtual wallet fund. VIY received funding to deliver over 400 employability activities to schools across the country including assembly visits, employability workshops and project days. Schools had the choice to run their project days on the school site or in the local community. Westminster School selected The Rowley Regis Hospital as the location for the VIY project which is part of a long-term partnership between the school and the hospital which will see students work on future projects at the hospital.

15 pupils from Westminster School, which caters for students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), spent a day renovating the garden at the hospital.  The garden has been designed for dementia patients to enjoy during their stay at the hospital. Over the duration of the project, the students built two planters for the garden and painted the existing furniture blue; which has been shown to aid dementia patients through its calming hues.

Woodrow Meeting Rooms

Wythall Hall

York Travellers Trust

York Travellers Trust welcomes people from the traveling community, including a local drop-in centre. The venue provides a vital place where people can get a coffee and speak to employees to support their needs, a regular food bank, and educational support for young people.

This is our first project funded by the Aviva Foundation’s Future Chances Fund. The fund aligns with our mission and aims to support organisations to strengthen the employability chances of young people facing barriers due to inequality and discrimination.

The project:

The project has helped to develop the educational offering and accessibility at the venue, creating a quiet room and a small creche room for young children.

Through carpentry, we helped to build storage, radiator covers and bench seating, plastered some interior walls, and redecorated to create spaces their community can benefit from.

Impact

• 21 local young people volunteering referred directly from the Travellers community, as well as local young people referred from the JobCentre and local schools/colleges in their holidays
• 18 Entry Level 3 City & Guilds accreditations earned in Carpentry and Painting & Decorating
• Many young people keen to volunteer with VIY again on our future work in York, particularly with through our work with City of York Council
• Hear what Alex Christopoulos, the Lead & Senior Strategic Adviser and Consultant from Aviva Foundation, told us when he visited the project here
• Chris, a tutor at York Traveller’s Trust told us: “For our young people, it has been a surprise to see not only how their work was an essential part of changing the space, but their realisation that their work will impact future users of the space. Those young people are due to start using the space for classes from September and gives them a sense of ownership of the space they otherwise wouldn’t have.”
• Feedback from users of the space: “It looks so much nicer, it makes it feel really calm and bright”
• Young learner: “I came back after it was finished, it looks completely different. I actually feel proud about what I’ve done”
• See the impact this experience had on Liam, one of the young learners

« Previous Page — Next Page »