The Venus Awards, formed in 2009 to recognise, reward and celebrate local working women in business. CEO/Co-Founder Jenna Boyson of Community Fusion recently became winner of the 2014 Green Business Award for the Portsmouth region for the charity’s shop Made With Hartt.

In December 2013 with the support of Healthy Planet and Cascades Shopping Centre the charity launched the project ‘Made with Hartt…’. This shop is mainly volunteer run, teaching new skills in retail and craft, leadership and responsibility. Items are sold from local community members and the focus is on being green with upcycling and recycling always on the agenda. The shop aims to be interactive and fun with a community heart.

As well as all the handmade gifts, arts, crafts and collections the shop gives away free books and hold free story time sessions for children. The Healthy Planet initiative ‘Books for Free’ run by Community Fusion in Portsmouth give away donated books, thus preventing them going to landfill or being pulped. On average the Books for Free programme give away 300,000 books a year nationally.

Jenna looked her glamours in her dress made completely of recycled material, in the form of kitchen roll, decorated with ink from a used printer cartridge by Dumpster Design. The dress was talked about all evening long, on line and even the kitchen roll company got in touch and joined in the celebrations!

Jenna Boyson describes her feelings on the night “What an amazing achievement and an amazing dress! The shop has not even been open for a year and already seen huge support and now an award. The Venus Awards was an exciting time and the first awards we have been invited to. I went all out and wore a dress created by Dumpster Design made of kitchen roll… I wanted to show that you really can craft extraordinary things from everyday items! This is not only fantastic for Community Fusion though but all credit goes to our stockists, volunteers and supporters. Time, energy and recourses are donated by so many people locally – without this support our shop would not even exist! Endless thanks to all who are involved.”

Congratulations to Jenna and everyone involved in Community Fusion. I encourage you to follow Community Fusion to stay up to date with all of their many projects. For more information check out their Facebook and Twitter @CommunityFusion.

Photos by Charlotte Griffiths Photography