It's time to pledge your support to East Lodge!

Hello everyone!

We need your support - we have just 2 months to raise the funds to buy East Lodge, and time is running out. You can pledge your support here or read on for more information.

We have been very hard at work since posting our original petition to 'Support the purchase of East Lodge as a community music and arts space'. We have:

• applied to the Charity Commission to form a charity 'Music at Heart Community Spaces', which would own the building
• applied to Leeds City Council for Change of Use for the building, from 'residential use' to 'educational/community use'
• had a RICS valuation done on the property
• worked with Stack Architects, as well as a freelance architect, Kerrie McKinnon, to draw up plans for the building, available here: www.musicatheart.org/community-spaces
• received a philanthropic pledge from the Marjorie & Arnold Ziff Foundation, raised around £1.5k towards the valuation and Change of Use costs, and raised nearly £2k in pledges in the last week since 1st September.

Our experienced fundraising team have worked so hard on assessing grant funding opportunities and due to the lack of funding opportunities for buying buildings, coupled with delays in the Charity Commission processing our charity application, we have been unable to grant-fund the purchase price of the building as we initially planned. However, we believe that there is enough momentum and local feeling towards this special building, that collectively, with lots of smaller donations and people coming together, we can still bring this project to life.

We are now asking our community to PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT!

If the 15,000 local people regularly using the park pledged £30 each, we can buy the building (£430k plus £20k fees and initial works)

Or, if 4,000 local people pledged £100 to 'Buy-a-Brick', and Gift-Aided their donation, we can buy and renovate the building with disabled access and a new upstairs music suite for children and young people (£500k full campaign target).

Please dig deep and support the campaign buy pledging today or visit our website for lots more information

You can pledge as little as £5, and every pledge is valuable. Thank you!