Tavistock young people get a little help from Tesco

Tavistock Youth Café has been awarded a £1,000 grant from Tesco as part of a scheme to support young people.

The youth café was one of the successful applicants to the Tesco Bags of Help community grant scheme, with a special round of grants being awarded to charities and community groups who work with young people.

Founded in 2005 in response to the lack of youth clubs in the town, Tavistock Youth Café fought against youth service cuts and became a charity in 2015, moving to a new building in the same year.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the club would hold three weekly sessions: a music session, Zephyr; a support project, Momentum; and a weekly general Friday session –as well as providing one-to-one support. The club has been reaching more than 100 young people a week.

The pandemic has meant that it is not currently possible to hold open youth club sessions, but online sessions and support for vulnerable young people are still taking place.

The club intends to use the £1,000 funding to help its more vulnerable members take part in projects and activities they might not otherwise have been able to access.

Vicki Lloyd-Walsh, Manager at Tavistock Youth Café, said: “We were established and continue to operate in response to young people’s needs in Tavistock.

“The lockdowns have meant that we have been unable to reach over 60 of the young people we would otherwise have been able to support. However, we are hoping soon to be able to run organised outdoor groups, along with the work with vulnerable young people we are already carrying out.

“We rely on personal donors and community grants, and in a time, when face-to-face fundraising activity is unable to take place, we are grateful for the funding received from Tesco and the charity Groundwork, which will enable some of the vulnerable people we support to access more of what we can offer.”

As part of the special round of community funding for youth charities, three grants of £1,000 have been made available in West Devon. In total, 1,995 groups were awarded grants of £1,965,500 by Tesco throughout the UK in 2020.

Keith Jackson, Bags of Help Manager at Tesco, said: “Young people have been among the most affected by the pandemic in the last year, be it due to school disruption or vital services stopping.

“We’re therefore very pleased to see so many charities and community groups coming forward for support, all of whom carry out vital work for young people in the UK, and delighted to be able to provide much-needed funding for many of them, including Tavistock Youth Café.”

Alex Forrester Corporate Partnership Manager from Groundwork commented: “We have seen a wide variety of groups come forward for funding, including outdoor activities, mental health charities, young carers, bereavement counselling, and charities working with vulnerable children.

“We see day to day the incredible work these groups do, but also how much they need funding to operate, which is often hard to come by, so it is fantastic to work with Tesco to be able to give a little help to some of them.”