Known for creating the beautiful for brands at events all over the world, Firecracker Works produce extraordinary things for a whole host of events from pop-up installations to immersive environments, shop window displays to exhibition stands.
With a workshop akin to Santa’s at Christmas, the team at Firecracker fill their warehouse with client creations again and again throughout the year. Whilst trying to uphold their considerate design mantra the team have long stored leftover materials from events gone by, hoping to find a solution other than sending them for recycling, incineration or to landfill.
No longer having space to spare, Firecracker contacted Event Cycle to spring clean their storage.
The warehouse spring clean
Starting with the outdoor areas, there were all sorts of items waiting for new homes, from scaffolding to coloured guttering, chicken mesh to painted timber and a lot of chipboard, set flats and plywood in between.
Venturing indoors, there were lockers, whiteboards, rolls of fabric, electrical water boxes, fibreglass insulation, astroturf and an enormous golden ball and chain.
From the warehouse Event Cycle’s work began. We came in to catalogue the items Firecracker were looking to donate and started to contact charities and not-for-profits in our database who could benefit from the items. With a local first approach, we reached out to our contacts in London and matched a number of items with
Islington Boat Club. pride themselves on being a place that is fully inclusive to all who wish to access it. People come to learn, improve their health and socialise through safe and affordable water-based activities.
An important part of their work is the Youth Club they run. Islington has the third-highest level of child poverty in London with 15,000 people living in families where nobody works. Many of these young people can find themselves feeling like their life choices are limited and in some cases can find themselves making negative decisions with serious implications such as exclusion from school or lawful intervention.
The Youth Club aims to provide the young people of Islington with a platform where they can engage in watersports, establish and develop friendships as well as gain qualifications helping them to keep themselves from a life of crime, feel valued and be a part of something outside of their issues at home and school. The activities and opportunities offered give individuals pathways out of poverty, exclusion and disadvantage instead putting them on a road to self-development and success.
After signing up on the Event Cycle website, we knew the exact needs of the boat club and got in touch to let them know what we had managed to get.
Islington Boat Club made use of the timber, chipboard and plywood to make advertising boards, replace their canoe cage roof and build another kayak rack after theirs had rotted during the bad weather of the winter.
Astroturf collected from Firecracker will be used to give their changing rooms a facelift as well as creating a more pleasant walk along their pontoons. Not only that but the foam rollers and tubing from inside the astroturf had a use too - they can be used as rollers for the floating canoe storage so the boats can slide on and off with ease.
Not stopping there, the boat club took electrical water boxes, vital for a very wet activity centre and the canvas collected was used to cover the backs of kayak cages.
And finally, the golden ball and chain…
Whilst walking through Firecracker’s warehouse talking about everything Event Cycle do, we highlighted some of the more interesting items which come into our possession. At that moment we passed a 1m wide fibreglass golden ball and chain, not too dissimilar to the one Miley Cyrus sat on in her music video Wrecking Ball (but much prettier, the ball not Cyrus), which we pointed out. The team at Islington Boat Club commented that it looked like a buoy and it just so happened to be their golden anniversary year. Onto the trailer it went and it now has pride of place in the middle of their lake.
Whether they’re for building boat racks, fixing roofs or creating more pleasurable environments for activities to take place, all of the items taken by the boat club in addition to saving the club money will go on to contribute to a supportive space for over 300 young people each year.
So whatever the item, give us a try as you never know what a charity might make use of.
This is part 1 of the Firecracker story, want to know where the rest of the items ended up? Find Part 2 here
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