In the volunteer editorial team, Volunteers for Chemnitz 2025 publish reports on their experiences, assignments and adventures around the European Capital of Culture.
Gabriele is 61 years old and works as a customer advisor. She lives in Schlosschemnitz and enjoys doing her bit for her home town. This is why she can be found volunteering at various events, which she then writes about for the volunteer editorial team.
The #3000 Garages project combines several small events in the various garage complexes in Chemnitz. These garage complexes have existed for a very long time and contain many personal stories of the garage owners.
The festival ran from 6 to 8 June 2025 and took place in the garage courtyard on Harthweg. A rather dull place was transformed into a place where people met, communicated and got active.
It was pouring with rain when the event started. However, the visitors were not deterred by the showers and enjoyed the day.
My assignment was on 7 June from 2-6 pm. I was supposed to supervise the children making small wooden garages. The place filled up and my stand was always busy. Most of the children managed well on their own or there were the hard-working parents at the start who finished the handicrafts at the end. Every now and then I tidied up and helped the children without parents to put the garage together. This was sometimes very difficult because it took a lot of strength. It was admirable how much patience the children had, especially when it came to designing the garages. One boy spent what felt like 3 hours at my standYou can still inspire children and lure them away from social media with the right offers.
There was also a small stage on the site with various garage talk shows and music. I found the music by the group "Gruppa Karl-Marx-Stadt" particularly captivating.
Every Capital of Culture project I took part in, whether as a visitor or a volunteer, showed me that you can get people involved and that they are happy to take part, even if the cultural events are sometimes unusual. Every visitor went home with a positive feeling of having experienced something wonderful. That is the best thing that the Capital of Culture can achieve and I am sure that Chemnitz, the visitors and of course myself will benefit from this for a long time to come.
I am very excited to see what happens next.