Community groups get ready for The Queen's Platinum Jubilee!

Community-led activities are getting underway in celebration of Her Majesty The Queen's Platinum Jubilee!

In April this year, 44 of our community foundations were able to distribute over 700 grants totalling £4.58m to community groups throughout England from our Let’s Create Jubilee Fund, on behalf of Arts Council England, the national development agency for creativity and culture. This was made possible thanks to National Lottery players. The funding will help to build community cohesion by connecting local artists and voluntary organisations that have not previously collaborated.  

In many instances, projects will create pieces of legacy artwork that will remain long after the celebrations have ended: 

Purfleet Trust in Norfolk (funded by Norfolk Community Foundation) has held workshops with people experiencing homelessness to produce a commemorative Zine that will be shared with the public as part of a guided walk of the town, King’s Lynn, during the Jubilee weekend.

With the Let’s Create Jubilee Fund, Women's Aid in Luton (funded by Bedfordshire and Luton Community Foundation) is working with Full House Theatre to deliver a programme of inspiring creative workshops for children in Luton who have experienced domestic abuse. The project involves a series of workshops, aimed at young people and is being delivered by professional artists and applied theatre specialists. These funded workshops aim to be the start of a longer-term project to create an artistic output to take to schools, highlighting to children and adults the key signs of domestic abuse in the home and how to ask for help. 

“When Gaby from Women’s Aid in Luton got in touch, we knew we had to say yes! This project is a unique opportunity for Full House to amplify the voices of seldom heard children.”

- Harriet Hardie, Creative Director, Full House Theatre

A Let’s Create Jubilee Fund grant was distributed via Wiltshire Community Foundation to AGE UK Wiltshire, to enable older people in the community to record their memories through poetry, art and music. Project leader, Emma walker, said:

“We want them to be feel involved in the celebration and. It’s an opportunity to capture their stories by using the milestones of The Queen’s reign to unlock those memories. It will be a social, historic record that captures these stories.”  

An ‘Into the Outwoods Sculpture Trail’, developed by ArtSpace Loughborough and funded by Leicestershire and Rutland Community Foundation, will specifically celebrate 70 years of the Queen’s guardianship of the people and lands of the UK, as well as exploring the theme ‘Harmony and Healing for Planet and People’. Nearby schools, groups working with vulnerable people, and local artists have joined together to co-create different artwork and sculptures based on biodiversity, which will form part of the woodland trail in June and July. 

Many of the funded activities are supporting diverse communities to build awareness and celebrate inclusivity in creative ways: 

Rehearsals have been going well in Portsmouth for Red Sauce Theatre, Global Music Visions C.I.C., Film Crew 4u CIC, and Owl XL CIC, who have all united in partnership thanks to Let’s Create funding via Hampshire and Isle of Wight Community Foundation.

The inclusive performance is based on a speech made by Princess Elizabeth on her 21st birthday. This pilot project is supporting the Red Sauce Inclusive Theatre group of adults to access and engage with parts of the theatre production process. 

In Tottenham, the Bernie Grant Arts Centre is preparing for a family-friendly afternoon of t-shirt design and crown making on the Jubilee weekend, with Let’s Create funding from The London Community Foundation.

The group has been working with artists to produce writing and art workshops for local Black LGBTQI+ residents, focusing on notions of identity, race, gender and sexuality. The work will be exhibited at the Centre afterwards.

Elsewhere, the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland has partnered with Belfast City Council to support events and fun activities taking place in local communities across the city over the Platinum Jubilee weekend.  

Jersey Community Foundation has distributed over £80,000 of its Platinum Lottery Jubilee Fund to support community groups developing activities in celebration of the Platinum Jubilee. The fund has supported the planning and development of storytelling projects, music events, woodland restoration, and even a King Charles II Experience which explores the historical link between Jersey and England from King Charles II to Queen Elizabeth II. 

“Occasions like this don’t come around very often. The events, installations, and celebrations that the Let’s Create Jubilee Fund helped support will live long in the memory once the bank holiday weekend has passed. However, for now we want the public to get involved and enjoy diverse range of creative talent that will be on show across the country.”  

- Rosemary Macdonald, CEO, UK Community Foundations

Find out about funded activities happening in your area by visiting your nearest community foundation.