Green-Works is an award winning social enterprise and registered charity dedicated to helping the environment by diverting redundant office and school furniture from landfill by providing reused and remanufactured furniture to small business, charities, schools and community groups whilst providing training and real work experience to the unemployed.

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Keeping the kids learning!

30 September 2010

Hatcham Temple Grove Primary School

Following the devastating fire that broke out on 6 April at Hatcham Temple Grove Primary School in New Cross, South London the school was faced with an impossible dilemma:  with less than a week to do it how could they get the school back up and running ready for 300 children to come back to after the Easter break?

At this point Green-Works stepped in and working almost day and night found in excess of 900 items of furniture including 370 chairs, 30 bookcases made from recycled material and even a medical couch!

 The school, part of the well known Haberdashers Federation, was undergoing a complete refurbishment when it was completely burnt out and all the furniture and equipment was lost.  It needed to create from scratch a new school as quickly as possible and for the minimum cost. The school needed everything from clocks, whiteboards and bins to storage units, tables and chairs to furnish 16 classrooms including a nursery and specialist ITC rooms, 6 offices, the staff room and a reception area.

Green-Works offered its services to replace as much of the items as possible, being able to fulfil such a large order in such a short space of time was major challenge, however pulling on all resources from the 4 Green-Works franchises across the country the order was met.

Having recently cleared out Southwark Primary School in Nottinghamshire, Broadfields School, Edgware and Jarrow School, Tyne & Wear, Green-Works were able to provide a range of specialist primary school furniture.

They very quickly identified an empty building that would be suitable but that left them just 4 days to source the furniture and equipment needed for 300 children and their teachers.

Nick Lewis the Facilities Manager for the Federation said "We were in a very difficult situation and Green-Works went a significant way to assist with our immediate needs and the short term recovery following the devastating fire at our New Cross primary school premises last week."

Colin Crooks CEO for Green-Works said this is one of our proudest achievements - we were set up precisely to help schools and charities with tough requirements and low budgets.  To think that the children won't miss a day of school as a result of our efforts makes all our efforts worthwhile.

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