Who are we?

Tiger Community Enterprise was set up in 2013 with the aim of helping people to help themselves to grow.

This ethos has allowed us to do a wide variety of projects over the years. Our work is driven by our service users to support the needs of our local community, which has led us to have a heavy focus on sewing and textiles based skills workshops.

Nottingham StrEAT

Tiger's first project was Nottingham StrEAT, an initiative to showcase local small independent business and community projects, and to provide the the opportunity to engage with the community. This was done through community street food markets in Nottingham City Centre. This project also meant we could provide work experience opportunities to young people particularly from Nottingham College and the local universities.

Tiger Green Textiles

Combining the needs and interests of the community with Director Toni's extensive sewing and textiles experience. We began offering textiles recycling workshops under the Tiger Green Textiles banner. Workshops encouraged people to come together to learn and share skills and make friends, with the focus being on a variety of items including bags, cushion covers, bean bags, table runners, reusable period products and much more.

We also added skills classes to the list of activities, in partnership with AC Crafts. Our work with Bakersfield Community Centre led to us running an activity cafe which offered the local community to come together to engage in simple activities, socialise and eat.

Although the project has had many guises over the years it is still running, incorporating sewing workshops and community making.

The COVID Years

Like many organisations, the onset of covid and national lockdowns brought our projects to an abrupt holt.

This led to us supporting and coordinating the local For The Love of Scrubs group to make and distribute items for the NHS such as; scrubs, scrub caps, laundry bags, headbands and face masks. We also sold masks on a buy one give one scheme meaning we could provide masks for free to those in need. By the time this project wrapped up in 2021 we had made 33,000 items for the NHS and healthcare workers in the East Midlands.

The SuPer Project

As we wound down our covid community making, we found we had volunteers still interested in making to support the community. Combined with pre-covid requests to teach people to make reusable menstrual pads for periods and incontinence, we began developing The SuPer Project using our own design of reusable menstrual pads along with skills, ideas we developed as part of our covid project. All our pads are made by volunteers and we sell them on a Buy One Give One basis to ensure we can provide free pads to people in the UK living in period poverty. The project officially started in May 2021 and continues to grow, for more information or to get involved, visit the dedicated website; www.thesuperproject.co.uk

Community Making

We still have a variety of community makes driven by the needs of our local community. We are currently making drain bags for the NHS and shopper bags for local food banks. These are all made by volunteers, often in the comfort of their own home. This gives our volunteers a chance to support their local community in a way that best suits them. 

Tiger Community Hub

We opened the Tiger Community Hub in April 2022 to give us a new home base for all our projects whilst simultaneously running a cafe and shop to offer work experience opportunities and help fund our community projects. We had to close at the end of January 2024 due to landlord wanting to redevelop the space.

All Souls Community Centre

All Souls has been our temporary space since February 2024. We wanted to continue our core projects and continue to feed the community with surplus food. We have worked closely with the church to fill some gaps in need in the local community. This has led to us turning our Tiger Community Cafe into a warm space with free hot drinks, food and activities every Wednesday. We also provide food for the children who attend Lego Church alongside Tiger Eats incorporating a chilled meal collection service and catering.

Collaboration

We love to work in collaboration with other community groups, from producing garden aprons with Pulp Friction members for their Chelsea Garden to running 'Cook in a Box' workshops with Green Meadows. If you need an expert to run sewing sessions for your community or want to feed a group then get in touch to discuss.

Our Future

You can't keep a good Tiger down! As always we strive to be better and provide more support in the community so we will make an announcement as soon as we have a new permanent space.