Opening doors, opening hearts: How Saturday hours have transformed lives in Wincanton’s community

We spoke to Suzanne Bell and Izzie Koch, project workers at The Balsam Centre in Wincanton, about how a Somerset Fund grant for £2,500 has helped to create a weekend haven where families flourish, connections deepen, and no one is left behind.

“By opening on Saturdays from 10am-2pm, we’ve extended the reach of the centre into the local community. It’s part of our Good Stuff project, which aims to increase community activity, bring people together to reduce loneliness and isolation, and support those who are on low incomes and struggling with the cost of living.

The grant from The Somerset Fund supports our Saturday staffing costs, alongside art and craft materials, games equipment, and subsidised refreshments in our community café, where we offer low-cost butties and hot drinks, and free fruit for children.

Our Saturday activities are open to everyone, but particularly families on low incomes with school-age children, many of whom are often unable to access our services during the week.

A lot of the families we see on a Saturday wouldn’t go out at all at the weekend if they couldn’t come to us. A family day out is expensive, and simply not an option for a lot of the people who come here.

People who have children with additional needs know we’re accepting and we understand. They see us as a safe space – and an affordable space. They can come here as a family and know there’ll be no judgement.

We’d love to be able to put on more of our larger events, offering free play days for all. We already put on a few all-day events across the year, like Pride Day, and Easter and Christmas events, and we’d like to do more – and on a bigger scale – to really pull in the whole community.

There’s a Mum who brings her autistic, ADHD, neurodiverse son here each week on a Saturday. He gets to play with other children, while she has a chance to chat with other adults here. Since she first started coming, she’s accessed a lot of the other groups here at Balsam, that she wasn’t previously aware of. She comes to our weekly Chat Café, and our Parent Carers Group, which is a monthly meeting for parents and carers of children with Special Educational Needs – which has offered her further signposting. And it all started because we got funding to open on Saturday mornings. It’s been absolutely life-changing for her.”