Funding Boost for Tain Youth Cafe Free Meals Programme
Tain Youth Café YMCA in Ross-shire has been awarded funding from North Highland Initiative to help boost its free meals initiative for vulnerable children and young people over the Easter school holidays.
Background
The main purpose of the Tain Youth Café YMCA is to release the potential of all children, young people and families within its community. The Tain Youth Cafe consists of around 40 volunteer adults and young people who donate their time to the Tain YMCA.
Over the last six years, Tain Youth Café YMCA has been providing fresh and healthy free meals to primary school aged children over all the Easter and Summer holidays. During the pandemic, and because of extra grants available, they were fortunate to expand the programme to include more villages surrounding Tain over the Summer.
In Summer 2019, Tain Youth Café YMCA provided 504 free meals to local children, but by Summer 2021 the number of free meals being offered to youngsters had leapt to around 5,900 covering six villages, demonstrating the significant impact that Covid has had on local families and their need to access the free meals service.
Last Summer alone, Tain Youth Café YMCA served around 9,000 slices of bread; 4,760 chicken nuggets; 504 slices of pizza and 672 hot dogs.
NHI Input
Tain YMCA were awarded a £750 grant from North Highland Initiative’s Community Infrastructure Support Programme (CISP). The funding they received will be used specifically to respond to rising demand and continue offering thousands of fresh and healthy free meals to eligible children in Tain and surrounding villages whose parents have been impacted by Covid-related financial losses.
We’re extremely grateful to North Highland initiative’s Community Infrastructure Support Programme for helping us to continue delivering our free meals initiative to vulnerable young people in Tain and surrounding villages this Easter holidays. The application was easy to complete and the NHI team were very helpful, especially the quick turn-around from applying to receiving the funds, so I would encourage any eligible charity to apply to the fund.
Graham Nutt, Senior Youth and Community Worker for Tain Youth Café YMCA
How to apply for funding
If you are a community group or business looking to develop sustainable infrastructure in the North Highlands, apply for CISP funding by filling out the application form.
For any enquiries, please contact: info@north-highlands.co.uk
