With more than 250 visitors to Abergavenny Community Centre each week the kitchen is in urgent need of upgrading and an SOS has gone out to help raise the necessary funds.

The Centre, formerly Park Street Infants School, is a hive of activity, where you can share skills, meet people, be creative and feel part of the community.

And at the heart of it is a wonderful kitchen - a big old school kitchen, which following closure in 2005, is in need of modernisation.

The Community Kitchen is a grassroots project: it’s all about families, children, older people, friends and neighbours coming together to improve and fulfill their lives.

Once refurbished the kitchen will be used for in-house catering for events, making affordable meals using local produce, a world café - inspired by local people, learning to cook, kitchen hire, work experience/training and business start-ups.

The space, together with ancillary stores, offers enormous potential to serve the community. But skills and money are needed urgently to turn the dream into reality.

With just over £5,000 in the kitchen fund volunteers have already started to strip out the space to allow electrical and plumbing work to start.

But the Centre is now looking to the wider public to help raise a further £3,000.

“If you can make a financial contribution – no matter how small - we will be very grateful, because it all adds up,” said Trustee Freddy Edmonds.

“Details of how to donate to the fund, can be found at abergavennycc.org under ‘DONATE’. Please use ‘Kitchen’ as the reference. If you’d like more information, please ring or visit the Centre or find us on Facebook.”

Abergavenny Community Trust (the local organisation that runs the Centre) has made an application to the Charity Commission to be officially recognised as a charity.

The Centre is launching an initiative called the ’Working Bee’ – a gathering of volunteers who come together to accomplish a task. In other parts of the world it’s a common practice. Working Bees encourage people to get together to help their communities by using the skills available to them.

“At the Abergavenny Community Centre we will be holding a series of working bees throughout the life of the kitchen project, and in return for giving us your time, we will show our appreciation by providing a nourishing meal, mugs of tea, and plenty of banter,” said Chloe.

“The great thing about coming together to achieve something is that people get to know each other.

“If you’d like to be part of the workforce, please contact us and we’ll keep you abreast of developments.”

The first Working Bee will take place in January. Email: [email protected] or phone 01873 856925 or 07751 666481.