In September 2013 Darren Iveson, Senior Youth Participation Worker was approached by Kay Sedgwick, Operations Manager from Barclaycard
Kay explained that they were looking to support a local charity and thought Five Lamps’ Youthy would be ideal.
Darren met with Kay and her manager Andrew Warburton to discuss what type of work they could possibly get involved in. Andrew explained that a lot of his staff had a background in different trades and they would provide 10 volunteers to work over 3 days.
After discussions with the staff it was agreed that the Youthy’s Climbing Wall would be painted to make it vibrant and more exciting for the young people to climb. Andrew also suggested that the Youthy staircase could also do with freshening up and the volunteers would be more than happy to do this. The staircase was sanded and re-varnished giving it a modern new image.
The final project was to install a new worktop within the Workshop/Kitchen area. The worktop needed to be sited at a low level to provide accessibility for wheelchairs. This would enable the Special Needs Young People to be more involved within the cooking workshops.
Barclaycard were also able to support the project with materials and paint to the value of £1,500.00
Darren explains
“It is fantastic to have been approached by a local company like Barclaycard wanting to be involved in a project that can make such a difference to our Youth Centre and to help make a difference towards helping our young people. What Barclaycard have achieved is absolutely amazing, just to see the look on the young people’s faces at the vibrant colours that have been painted on the wall gives it the WOW Factor and we can also now accommodate our disability wheelchair users to be able to be more involved in some of the workshops we deliver. On a personal note and on behalf of Five Lamps’ Youthy we would like to thank Andrew Warburton manager of Barclaycard and his team for a fantastic community project they have achieved”
Five Lamps purpose built youth centre ‘The Youthy’ has 4 dedicated youth clubs and is open 4 nights a week.