Local community group, ‘The Little Hub’ based in Flanshaw, Wakefield is celebrating after being awarded almost £20,000 in National Lottery funding to support its work with local women and mothers.
The hub was founded by ex-primary school teacher and local mum-of-two, Corinna Nicol, 45, from Wakefield, and has grown from humble beginnings into a vibrant community space, offering workshops and support sessions for families across the district.
Corinna founded ‘The Little Hub’ after searching for a permanent space to hold her baby massage classes, following her decision to leave her teaching career. Her passion for supporting local parents, especially mothers, stems from her own experience of feeling isolated and alone after becoming a mother.
Corinna explains; “When I had my first baby in 2013, I felt incredibly isolated and alone. I was struggling with postnatal depression, though I didn’t realise it at the time, but I constantly feel like I wasn’t doing enough as a mum. My baby didn’t sleep, and looking back, it’s clear how much my mental health was affected.
“With many SureStart centres having closed and not wanting to bother my GP, I felt I had nowhere to go or anyone to really turn to, other than close family members – who in all honesty, at the time didn’t truly understand. I remember attending a yoga class and the yoga teacher saying to me; ‘you’re doing a really good job – well done mama!’ – even now, almost a decade later, I get emotional thinking about it because her ‘off the cuff remark’ meant so much to me – it literally was a game-changer and from that moment I realised that I was going to be ok and I could do this mummy thing!”
“When our second baby arrived in 2015, I had built a stronger community of mum friends through my first daughter’s preschool, and that made navigating motherhood a second time around much easier. I realised that there’s truly a transformative power in having a supportive community and network and this ignited a passion in me to work with parents.”
So, in 2017, Corinna left her teaching career, having worked as a primary school teacher for over 12 years. She knew she wanted to build a community and do what she could to support local parents. She initially trained as a Baby Massage Teacher, she said; “In all honesty, I had zero idea of how to run a business, but started one anyway, because I had a mission and passion. I worked hard, replaced and exceeded my teaching salary within 6 months. And, so much has happened since then, and it feels like another lifetime, but it was still the best thing I ever did. I will always be grateful to all those lovely ladies who came to my first Baby Massage classes.”
Since initially opening as a space for Corinna to do her baby massage classes, ‘The Little Hub’, is now a Community Interest Company (CIC) and has a team of volunteers, paid facilitators and the online Facebook Group has over 700 active parents.
The group currently hosts various classes and workshops for mums, children and babies. The sessions help the children and their parents to make connections, while learning new skills and having fun. The new funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest community funder in the UK, will see these sessions expand, meaning that more local families will benefit from a plethora of free activities.
This funding will also enable The Little Hub to offer more activities for local women and mothers, introducing support sessions focused on helping parents, particularly mums, with their mental health, to form connections, share their experiences, and develop a supportive network.
Corinna is also the Founder of Connect Women in Biz and her online network has grown to reach almost 1.5K local women in business, meaning that the space is also used by local businesses as a venue for their own classes, workshops and events.
Corinna continues: “We’re delighted that The National Lottery Community Fund has recognised our work in this way. Now, thanks to National Lottery players we will be able to press on with our plans to broaden the range of opportunities available to local children and their parents. I am particularly passionate about supporting maternal mental health and looking to reach out to more parents, particularly mums, in the Wakefield District.”
The National Lottery Community Fund recently launched its strategy, ‘It starts with community’, which will underpin its efforts to distribute at least £4 billion of National Lottery funding by 2030.
As part of this, the funder has four key missions, which are to support communities to come together, be environmentally sustainable, help children and young people thrive and enable people to live healthier lives.
National Lottery players raise over £30 million a week for good causes across the UK. Thanks to them, last year (2023/24) The National Lottery Community Fund awarded over half a billion pounds (£686.3 million) of life-changing funding to communities across the UK, supporting over 13,700 projects to turn their great ideas into reality.
