SENIORS CLIMATE  ACTION NETWORK (SCAN)
Community Action
Community Project:
Green Island Shed
Story by Ivan Johnstone

The Green Island Shed is a place where people can go to connect, share skills, and be creative. It's about getting people together and getting a sense of community back again, a community space to share skills, have a laugh, and work on individual or group projects. Most sheds around New Zealand take on community projects, examples of which include building playgrounds for pre-school centres, repairing toy library stock, repairing old bikes for distribution to poorer communities, building planter boxes for the main street of the local central business district. The sort of projects a shed tackles is entirely up to the shed concerned. The Green Island Shed has built seats for five local schools, made giant, colourful ‘‘pencils’’, building seats for Riding for the Disabled, and sells kindling and Christmas trees. The list goes on.


The Green Island Shed is located adjacent to the Green Island Community Garden in Shand St on land owned by the St Peter Chanel Church. The Green Island Shed took shape with three giant shipping containers to anchor its structure in place.



The containers were placed to create a ''U-shape'' and roof structure was built between the containers to create work areas for projects, storage, and an area where people could gather to socialise and have morning tea. (See the virtual tour below).


The Green Island Shed organisation under the coordination of Pip Weber received great support from the community, funders, and local businesses. Supporters included the Dunedin City Council Community Fund, Bendigo Valley Foundation, Fulton Hogan Ltd, Fresh Choice, Greg Inch Earthmoving, Icon, ATL, and more. A range of tools and equipment was donated.  The Green Island Shed offers opportunities to foster new friendships. After months of the initial development with a membership of more than fifty, a sheddie stated that  “Ten months ago none of us knew each other, but now it feels like we all went to kindergarten together!”






Virtual Tour of Green Island Shed
SENIORS CLIMATE  ACTION NETWORK (SCAN)