We truly believe that our city Carlisle, is great!  Give A Day to the City is one of the ways we believe could make our city even greater.

Our story

Give A Day to the City is not a new concept at all, we see many similar concepts happening across the world.  Our story began during a meeting of church leaders with one of our city leaders.  Andy Fearon, of Carlisle Vineyard Church had a growing question that he shared with the group.  "What if everyone in our city took whatever they were good at, whatever they were passionate about, whatever skill they had, whatever was in their hand and gave it to our city for a day?" 

A few years later, in January 2015 Andy had the opportunity to present this idea again to a city wide initiative called Carlisle Ambassadors.  By March he was presenting the concept to hundreds of business, organisation and city leaders at one of the Carlisle Ambassadors meetings.  A good few in the room were inspired and our first pilot project was launched in June 2015 when a local businessman, Paul Rheinbach, oversaw the renovation of a local football club's changing rooms.  

Between June and October 2015 we first full piloted 12 different projects.  Some were very practical - like the building of an all access road, others were to inspire our city's future business leaders and still others to encourage the staff of our local NHS hospital.  But each of them was an act of generosity, given for the benefit of others in our city.

Give A Day 2016 took place in June of that year.  Given that this was just 6 months on from the devastation caused in the city by Storm Desmond, many projects focussed on recovery work.  14 projects were delivered, ranging from clearing stones from the football pitches of the Sheepmount, refurbishing the skate park to renovating 3 uninsured flood-affected properties and hosting a street party for the Queen's 90th Birthday.

Year on year, we've developed the concept further, but our aim is simple:  for Carlisle to be a generous and great city.

 We're simply asking our city - "What's in your hands?"  "What are you passionate about?" "How could you give that away?" and inviting our city to submit their projects and plans to us.          

This website will be a space where our city can see your projects, join projects, or be inspired to host and plan their own project!

Here's our 2016 overview video...