MEET the team keeping Pill’s Millennium Centre open, day in, day out.

The Pill Mill has been run by members of the community since January, and has raised more than £5,000 to keep the lights on.

But it wouldn’t stay open if it wasn’t for the efforts of volunteers, with no paid staff to open up or close for the day.

Currently the building is earning £2,000 in income a month from organisations using the facilities, but has outgoings of around £2,500 a month.

But without a project helping fund the facility in the long term, it is up to locals to give up their time to keep Pill Mill open.

Currently the centre is open six days a week, for 12 hours a day, with a core of five volunteers there on a daily basis.

The Pill community has dug deep for the community centre, donating £1,300 from bag-packing in ASDA alone, and another £1,300 from a fundraising event.

Ali Boksh, chairman of Pill Millennium Centre Trust, which runs the centre, said that the volunteers are at the centre every day: “Without the volunteers we would be closed.

“If we lose our volunteers it’s not going to be sustainable.

A lot of us have other jobs as well.

“We want to get some long-term funded projects in here that will keep us sustained.

“If you can get a core of paid staff we will resolve the issue but it’s going to be hard to fund that.”

One volunteer, Bernard Sefton, hung up his boots last week. “We’d like to thank him for his service,” Mr Boksh said.

Pill Mill closed in January after a cash crisis, brought on by the withdrawal of a training provider, and it was forced to let three members of staff go.

Members of the community rallied around the centre and days later it re-opened, with six people from or with roots in Pill taking over the trust.