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Transport company pays for disadvantaged Leeds children to take a UK holiday
Monday 19 October 2009
A group of Leeds children will benefit after kind hearted bosses at First, the UK’s largest bus and train company, provided money for them to go on residential short breaks.
Leeds Children’s Holiday Camp Association – a Leeds based charity, has been awarded £4,000 by First’s Charities and Sponsorship Committee, which was set up last year to consider requests for funding and gifts from groups and organisations across the country. The committee aims to provide charitable support in line with three specific criteria – young people, health and the environment.
The money will be spent on residential short breaks/respite for disadvantaged and socially excluded children aged seven to eleven years and from the Leeds area. The charity owns Silverdale Holiday Centre, near Morecambe in Lancashire, and over 300 children each year from Leeds are provided with a well earned break at the location which is situated within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty overlooking the picturesque Morecambe Bay.
The charity assists children and families who live in the most deprived areas of Leeds. Children who are most in need of assistance are referred to the charity by schools, social service, foster parents and other organisations who work with their families. These groups and organisations view this unique service as extremely worthwhile and something that they cannot provide themselves.
The children are disadvantaged for various reasons including poverty, neglect, abuse, homelessness, victims of domestic violence, behavioural, emotional and physical disabilities, children who are young carers for parents, grandparents and/or siblings, those in foster or social care, and children from vulnerable ethnic minority groups.
Verlie McCann, Chairman of Leeds Children’s Holiday Camp Association, said: “The project allows children to have time and space to be themselves in a safe and secure environment where they are encouraged to develop confidence, self-esteem, personal interpersonal and communications skills and lasting friendships with others from different backgrounds within an atmosphere of fun and friendship.
Richard Harris, Commercial Director for First in West Yorkshire, said: “First’s donation will help this project by financing short breaks for children who would not otherwise have an opportunity to have release from often hostile environments, or to leave the city to see a different world outside of their very insular surroundings.”
First is West Yorkshire’s biggest bus operator with more than 1,100 buses across West and North Yorkshire including Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield and York. It is also responsible for the TransPennine train service that links Leeds with the North West and North East of England.
Picture 1 - Oakwood Primary School pupils (and brothers) Kenneth Peddie, aged 9 (red t-shirt) and Timothy Peddie, aged 10 (blue t-shirt) with Verlie McCann, Chairman of the charity and First bus driver Ken Walker.