August 22nd -
We have had a wonderful last 12 months. Thank you to all our partners and supporters who have made the vision to bring down barriers into a growing reality. Thank you to our team of staff and volunteers who have worked their socks off to help children and families in Leeds to flourish. And thank you to everyone who has been part of our cookery clubs, family groups, mentoring and all the other fun activities – it has been an absolute joy to get to know you.
Your support as partners and donors has meant that over 350 people have started to see their lives change for the better through the last year.
Children have begun to dream of a bigger future and parents have grown in confidence.
The year started with 3 pilot projects, one part-time member of staff, a team of eager volunteers and 78 people being helped. We enter the summer of 2018 with 11 projects, 2 members of staff, a team of 30 volunteers and 350 people directly benefitting from our work in some of the poorest areas of Leeds.
We often have the privilege of seeing a huge acceleration of confidence in a particular child and, to measure this, we have redesigned our monitoring and evaluation with the help of students in the Education Department at the University of Leeds.
One end of term questionnaire with one of our Year 6 groups revealed that 92% of them thought that they were better at working in a team and 100% felt more positive about themselves.
Each person we have supported has stories of change beginning to unfold, families being drawn closer together and confidence growing as they start to flourish. So, we would like to again thank all of our supporters, partners, funders, staff and volunteers – your generosity with your money, time and encouragement has made this a fantastic year.
We’re thrilled to welcome the latest additions to our team, Tabitha, Papaya and Josiah, our Graduate Interns, and Helen, the latest member of our cookery team. We can’t wait for them to showcase their experience, expertise and enthusiasm! Let’s get to know them a little better…
“Before this group, I felt like a nobody. Now I feel like somebody.” This was the answer 8-year-old Evie gave when asked about the difference our Activity-Based Mentoring Group had made for her. This sums up for us why we do what we do. Everyone deserves to know that they matter, whatever their circumstances and challenges.
We are immensely grateful to everyone who has contributed to our slow cooker appeal.
What a great term it has been at FFL! We have been busy delivering our various groups and programmes around Leeds. Our families have loved coming along to the groups and have benefitted hugely from the activities and support from the FFL team.