Keep Hum Humming!

In short;

-Hum, a community project, restored a derelict heritage villa, which the community now uses as a social hub.

-The lease agreement included a rent free period in return for restoration work.

-We planned to use this time to restore the building and begin using it to generate income to sustain Hum.

- We were told that re-piling and re-leveling had been completed, but it hadn't, so restoration stalled.

-The rent free period expired while we were fighting this issue in court.

-Now we need $80,000 by November 21st to save Hum, secure the villa, and move forward with making this project self-sustaining.

***Please join us and donate what you can to help #saveHum***

Please browse through our website, http://fallingapple.org.nz and visit our Facebook page, https://facebook.com/humsalon to learn more about us and our cause, and then consider a donation.

Ways to donate:

1) NZ issued credit/debit cards, donate here at Givealittle

! Note! International credit cards might fail through givealittle, unless you request to unblock your credit card: https://givealittle.zendesk.com/entries/21771524-How-do-I-donate-if-my-internationally-issued-credit-card-failed-

2) You can also donate using PayPal if you have an international credit/debit card, go to our website http://fallingapple.org.nz/donate/ to find out how

3) Online banking straight to Falling Apple Charitable Trust account ANZ 06-0869-0647302-00

4) Cash/cheque donations at Hum Cafe & Villa Space during opening hours

If you would like more information here is the story in more detail:

We are an exciting community project located on the corner of Grafton Bridge and Grafton Road, Auckland. Over the last four years we have successfully brought the beautiful once derelict Heritage Villa at 123 Grafton Road back to life with the help of community volunteers and NZ businesses donating product. (You can read more about the External Restoration Initiative on our website, http://www.fallingapple.org.nz/about/initiatives/external-restoration-initiative/)

The villa is the last of its kind here in Grafton and has a rich history including having the city engineer, W.E. Bush, who built the bridge reside here while it was constructed. If we had not taken up the restoration of the villa it would have been left boarded up, eroding and demolition eminent. To-date our investment in restoring the historic house has been estimated at close to $659,000, a mind-boggling achievement by both local and the extended New Zealand and International community alike!

The restoration continues and the villa is used by the community as a space to meet, connect with others, relax, unwind, create and engage with others in a disengaged world. We provide a positive open space so people from all walks of life feel welcome.

Both individuals and community groups use the space. We support the arts in many ways; poetry, performance, drawing and music events, workshops, art exhibitions and much much more. We have musical instruments on site, a lounge, reading room, piano room, table tennis and an open backyard fire for everyone to enjoy.

The space is facilitated by volunteers and offered for free to the community. Students use our space to study, visitors and patients from the hospital come to get away from their worries, people relax on our couches, rooms are used to write and draw, business meetings are held here and music is created here. We have a beautifully strong and growing community space.

Through our Heritage Restoration Initiative, numerous individuals have gained their entry back into the work force by working alongside professional volunteers. The positioning of the house by the Grafton Bridge has enabled us to be a lighthouse to those in need both emotionally and materially.

The community has donated all of the items in the house that make up the community space and continue to donate items that we then give to those in need; parents from the starship hospital often are caught short and need clothes, there are individuals who have no money for clothes or food who we serve, people in the community need tools that we lend out, people dealing with shock from events that bring them to the hospital need a quiet place to rest or a hug and a lending ear, artists need a place to rehears and perform, children living in apartments need a place to play outdoors, people just need other people. We meet an array of needs just as the projects needs have been met. We are the community serving our community.

Volunteers run our little coffee shop we have at the front of the villa, too. We train baristas who act as the guardians of the villa and offer a friendly conversation for those who feel like a chat or a listening ear.

The space is open for people to use as they like, a volunteer is on site at all times meaning there is always someone here to ensure there is positive oil in the wheels. While we offer coffee for sale to help pay for utilities, people can use the space without a pressure to purchase anything. Essentially, it is a home away from home for many. We are many things to many people.

Although people can BYO food to the space, ultimately we want to serve food in our community space, build back decks and keep developing the gardens out the front and back. The project is metamorphic in nature as we grow and further develop the site.

We have a 22-year lease (until 2033) on the premise with first right to purchase and first right to renew.

We have overcome some major hurdles to get to where we are today and now we face one of the biggest yet. We have exactly 15 days to raise $80,000 for outstanding rent. We had hoped to be afforded an opportunity to delay further rent payments due to the need to remedy the structural issues (repiling and releveling) with the house that hold back any further major restoration work. Unfortunately no grace has been granted and now we face the prospect of having to close our doors in 15 days, leaving the villa to further erode and its survival compromised.

We signed the lease on the house assuming the repiling and releveling had been done and was given a Code of Compliance certificate stating this. During the external restoration we discovered it had not been done meaning further serious building work could not continue until this was remedied. We negotiated a rent free period based on calculations to complete the exterior and internal so the site would be fully complete and the community could earn monies from it to meet rent when it was due, however this calculation did not include the time and costs associated with repiling and releveling.

Getting to the bottom of how to move forward and who is responsible for the repiling and releveling meant time for rent payments arrived and the site was stuck in transition. While we have a right to claim in the courts compensation for a deficient Certificate issued for the foundations the lease we signed dictates we pay rent. Contractual law states that you must pay rent and it cannot be withheld despite any issues there maybe with the property. We attempted to seek grace on rental payments and were hopeful it would be granted but precedence in the courts dictates that you pay rent first and resolve issues later. So if we lose the house for non-payment of rent we can still claim in the courts for the communities lost investment in the house, except we won't have the house and it will be at threat of demise. The community wants to keep the house, safe guard it, not to lose the house and gain the money from a claim.

If we are removed from the site it is unlikely a new tenant would be found willing to invest in the doing of the repiling and releveling to further sustain the historic villa and all the community's work to-date would be lost – and even more importantly – this growing grass roots community movement would have lost its home; a home that it invested its heart and soul in, a home that is symbolic of what people can do when they come together.

While we need $80,000 urgently we would like the fundraising campaign to continue to run to make future rent payments as we gear up the space to be self-sustainable in its own right to meet operating costs. We would like to see how much we can raise!

In the unfortunate and unlikely event we don't reach our goal and we lose the house, Hum and Falling Apple will continue its activities nevertheless. If we don't meet our goal, we will take it to our community as to where we should put the money.

Miracles happen; the project is built on miracles! We ask for your help to keep Hum in the villa. There is no opportunity for an extension of time on this; we have 15 days. Whether the community site and the historic villa is saved now rests in your hands. If you have ever used the space or being a part of building it, if you believe in community or are an advocate for saving New Zealand heritage, perhaps you simply believe in our ethos of ‘People before Profit’; we ask earnestly for your support. Please help keep Hum Humming! #savehum

Please browse through our website, http://fallingapple.org.nz and visit our Facebook page, https://facebook.com/humsalon to learn more about us and our cause, and then consider a donation.

Ways to donate:

1) NZ issued credit/debit cards, donate here at Givealittle

! Note! International credit cards might fail through givealittle, unless you request to unblock your credit card: https://givealittle.zendesk.com/entries/21771524-How-do-I-donate-if-my-internationally-issued-credit-card-failed-

2) You can also donate using PayPal if you have an international credit/debit card, go to our website http://fallingapple.org.nz/donate/ to find out how

3) Online banking straight to Falling Apple Charitable Trust account ANZ 06-0869-0647302-00

4) Cash/cheque donations at Hum Cafe & Villa Space during opening hours

Thanks for keeping Hum humming! Spread the word on social media using #savehum hash-tag