East Region News
Kick-off at Richmond Park
Children at Richmond Park have been enjoying weekly football sessions, ‘Kicks’, run by Sheffield Wednesday Community Programme, and supported by our recent Community Investment funding.
The programme is the South Yorkshire football club’s charity platform that gives something back to the community, and a big part of this is encouraging young people to get active.
The programme recently received £8,000 in funding from our Greater Together Foundation Resilience Fund to do more of this work with school-aged children at Richmond Park, one of our key neighbourhoods.
The team have been running a weekly youth group at the community centre on Thursdays after school since late April, having first met with young people and their parents and guardians in Richmond Park to discuss what would be on offer. We also supported them to promote these sessions in local schools.
Paul Hebda, Youth and Integration Manager at Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, commented:
“This funding has supported SWFCCP to gain access and broaden our universal community approach, creating and developing new partnerships with partners as well as links to new schools, such as Athelstan Primary School, where the team will be supporting with the 2023 sports day.”
Our Community Partnerships Manager, Steven Gayle, said:
“Great Places is pleased to be working in partnership with Sheffield Wednesday Community Programme in delivering the Kicks session at Richmond Park Community Centre. The response from local young people has been overwhelming and the feedback from parents, residents and the local primary school has also been very positive.”
Minimising waste and maximising support with Food Works
Food Works aim to take care of our planet and people by growing food, reducing waste and feeding the community through their four-part model of farm, kitchen, community and market.
This market is close to one of our key neighbourhoods, Richmond Park and so the organisation was well placed to apply for our Greater Together Foundation Resilience Fund.
Our funding of £8,000 has gone directly towards the purchase of a blast chiller for one of their cafes, which has proved to be a huge help for reducing production time, therefore increasing their cooking capacity. This has allowed them to prepare roughly 800 more meals every month!
Whilst their support is available to everyone, a significant proportion is focused on taking pressure off struggling families, during school holidays in particular. Since Food Works began to receive our funding in February 2023, 636 free children’s meals were distributed, and 70 of these were given to children in Handsworth during the May-June half term. When asked about the difference our funding has made to their capacity, Natalie Flanagan, CFO of Food Works said:
“It has been fantastic having the support from Great Places to be able to increase our meals production and provide a free school holiday meal provision to local Handsworth residents. We hope to continue working with Great Places to provide affordable and sustainable food in the city.”