Boathouse Youth 'makes a real difference'

The Boathouse Youth, based in Blackpool, has distributed more than 2,040 food parcels and 6,800 activity packs to its young members over the last five months.

Under more normal circumstances, The Boathouse Youth (BHY) focuses on supporting young people in Blackpool by promoting three core elements - positive activities, nutritious food and

healthy relationships – via its youth clubs in Broomfield and Grange Park.

However, during lockdown, the charity made changes to ensure it was still able to help young people while adhering to Government and Public Health England guidelines.

Laurance Hancock, chief executive officer at The Boathouse Youth, said: “As soon as lockdown was announced we started to plan how we could still work with our young members as we

felt they would need us more than ever.

“We completely restructured the charity to provide regular doorstep deliveries of activities and food to over 400 children and their families as well as created a series of interactive online

sessions.

“We could not have achieved this without the valued support of our regular volunteers, patrons like Key Group and our group of sponsors.

“A big thank you also goes to the team at Blackpool Tower who allowed us to use their commercial refrigeration and freezer units for our food parcels as well as their donations of food and

drinks.”

BHY Bloomfield Youth Centre was turned into an activity pack distribution centre while BHY Grange Park Youth Centre was the food distribution hub so food parcels could be processed

and delivered each week.

Zoom sessions featuring online crafts, quizzes, and the popular ‘Cooking with Kay’ sessions were also arranged while youngsters took part in cycling, canoeing and ghyll scrambling during

the school holidays.

The Youth Centres are now open again, operating 20 ‘bubbles’ across its two sites with capacity for 300 children.

Simon Thompson, chief executive at Key Group, one of The Boathouse Youth’s platinum patrons, said: “We are delighted to support this amazing organisation, which continues to make a

real difference to the lives of children.”