Recycle for Sight

Brightly decorated giant spectacles made by the Hub on the Green’s Wednesday craft group have found a new home.

Made from upcycled cardboard boxes, the glasses created an ‘eye-catching’ window display during the first dark weeks of the year, brightening up Sycamore Road and encouraging people to donate used specs to help others to see.

Now they’ve been donated to Lions Club International, which runs the scheme, and will be on display at their national headquarters in Kings Heath.

In autumn last year, the Hub became a collection point for ‘Recycle for Sight’, which sends used spectacles to help improve the sight of others around the world. Even broken glasses can be upcycled and nothing goes to landfill.

“Donating old specs is such an easy thing to do and makes a huge difference to the people who receive them,” said Hub volunteer and trustee Fiona, who helped set up the partnership. “So far, we’ve handed over 200 pairs, and more are donated every week.”

Fiona is pictured with Brigitte from Lions Club International who recently visited the Hub.

“We’d like to express our sincere thanks to The Hub on the Green for donating their fantastic oversized cardboard spectacles, beautifully made by the craft group,” Brigitte said.

“These creative pieces will continue to do good as part of a display at the Lions Clubs National HQ, helping to raise awareness for the Lions ‘Recycle for Sight’ initiative.”

Children’s Book Swap - Feb 26

A ‘Room on the Broom’ witch, wizard and mini Harry Potter helped add to the fun of the Hub on the Green’s latest children’s book swap, which took place on Saturday (February 21).

The story characters, volunteers and staff had a fun-packed morning as children chose books they wanted to take home and enjoy reading.

This popular quarterly event was postponed from January because of heavy snow and ice which spoiled the wizard’s flight to the Hub on the Green. Saturday’s bright skies meant the wizard (aka John Dolan, Chair of Trustees at the Hub) was able to head outside with our new volunteer Jane to promote the event, surprising some Bournville shoppers!

New, this time round was a children’s version of the Hub’s popular ‘Blind Date with a Book’ where pre-loved books are wrapped, with clues about the mystery book inside written on the recycled packaging.

“Behind all the fun is the chance for excited kids to get more fantastic books they haven’t read and the boring grown-ups to save money (kids’ books are costly),” John said. “All this possible with our stupendous volunteers like Alison who started the Book Swap, Mhairi and Fiona who made up the Blind-date-with-a-book parcels and everyone who helped in so many ways, not least Logan, our resident Harry Potter!”

The book swap kicked off the Hub on the Green’s varied programme of events to support ‘Go All In’, the National Year of Reading 2026. These include the next children’s book swap which will take place during the Easter holidays. Watch out for when we announce the exact date.