Everyone Every Day: Kirkcaldy project’s community ideas after High Street stay

People in Kirkcaldy, Burntisland, Kinghorn and Auchtertool are set to receive the newspaper from the Corra Foundation following its three-month stint in Kirkcaldy’s High Street – the first to be staged in Fife.

It ran the Everyone Every Day initiative with one simple aim - to make everyday life better for everyone.

The foundation began as Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland, but split from the bank a decade ago and is now an independent organisation which, if it does for Kirkcaldy what it has done in the London borough of Barking and Dagenham, could see a host of new opportunities opening up.

It comes just weeks after councillors approved plans to invest £240,000 in the project. Plans are already underway to launch a new, free-to-use maker space.

The paper will pull together all the ideas pitched by people who dropped in.

Emily Wallace, national programme manager (appetite for change), said the newspaper allowed the foundation to share the feedback it got from those who attended the shop front.

She said: “The newspaper is us pulling together everything we heard, the kinds of community ideas people had shared with us, and the kind of things people had said they wanted to focus on, whether that was around activities for young people or intergenerational activities”.

However, the paper also invites further feedback from those who were unable to attend the shop last summer.

Emily added: “The idea behind it is us going out and making sure we have a spread as wide as possible, because we know people might not have seen us in the shop, and because we’re not based in Kirkcaldy as an organisation, we know we’re not around all the time.

“We thought we’d put the newspaper out to each household across Kirkcaldy, Burntisland, Kinghorn and Auchtertool so that people got an idea of what we were talking about and could give feedback. “

The project launched in the Lang Toun in July 2022, and more than 250 people attended with 96 per cent approval for the proposed plans.

Emily added: “People told us they told us they loved the area they lived in, but pointed out to us that there was a lot of untapped potential. As soon as people got an idea of what we were proposing they suddenly came forward with all these ideas.

“They really valued the fact there were organisations out there who already did great stuff.

"But they also were really keen to do more and try things out. They wanted to have a space where it was okay to try stuff and have it not work out and have to adapt it. That’s exactly what this programme is about – it's about inviting people in to try stuff out, to develop it, shift it, change it, or just do something once and then go on to something else.

“It’s about getting lots and lots of activity happening. I think people could really see how that would make their communities and their towns feel really vibrant and alive.”

Find out more information at: everyonescotland.org/