Garvald Edinburgh

Garvald Edinburgh is a Scottish charity providing a caring, friendly environment for adults with learning/physical disabilities at diverse arts, crafts, bakery, catering and gardening workshops across the Lothians.

For over 50 years we’ve been providing creative workshops for our community of Members (service-users) to build skills, grow confidence, push themselves and flourish.

They currently support 245+ people aged between 16-78 with learning and physical disabilities. E.g. autism, Down’s syndrome, brain injury, as well as sensory impairment, who attend day services at five locations in and around Edinburgh and Midlothian.

In October 2025 they were awarded a £450 grant from the Murgitroyd Foundation towards the purchase of a new cash register at the Canteen of Garvald’s “Orwell Arts” building in Dalry, Edinburgh.

Garvald’s Kitchen group are involved in all aspects of cooking over 40 healthy, lunchtime meals each day for everyone in the “Orwell Arts” building, which houses the Pottery, Art Studio, Glass, Media, Gardening and Weaving Workshops. The Kitchen team also learn valuable food preparation /catering skills in the process and choose recipes, decide menus and serve tasty dishes using fresh fruit/vegetables.

Everyone visiting the Canteen pays for their meals and members of the Kitchen team have the opportunity to learn how to use the cash register. However, the existing till was too small, not easily readable for members and the drawer was frequently getting stuck!

Although local authority/statutory funding makes up 92% of our income, this covers salaries and core costs only. Any building maintenance/repair or unforeseen expenditure such as needing new equipment has to be fundraised additionally, which is why they rely on the generosity of Trusts/Foundations to keep our charity providing a high-quality service for people with disabilities.

The grant from the Murgitroyd Foundation enabled them to buy a larger brand-new till and make changes to improve the opportunities to learn new skills.

“The new till is great! There is a rota, so a different Member uses it at lunchtime each day – they are all finding it much easier to use than the old one.”