A YOUTH charity in Romsey received a donation through Waitrose’s community matters team to help fund its work throughout the summer.

Youth in Romsey, based in Southampton Road, accepted £750 from Waitrose to help keep its services running throughout the summer.

The donation in July has helped the youth club remain open Monday to Thursdays, offering a free tuck shop, drinks, an allotment project, sexual health provision, job searches and career and general advice.

Linda Bate, psychotherapist at Youth in Romsey said: “Youth in Romsey do not receive any local authority funding for any of the services we offer so, donations from organisations such as Waitrose are hugely important to us as it enables us to offer consistent services to the young people in our community. Having the summer holiday donation has enabled us to open our doors each day and offer our facilities for young people to enjoy.

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“We are the only local organisation that offers all round support to the young people of Southern Test Valley. Our services are free and accessible to any young person between the ages of six and 25 years, providing a confidential, non-judgemental and inclusive environment through counselling, youth groups, sexual health services, job and apprenticeship advice and school respite. Referrals for our services come from local GPs, external agencies, schools, family, community and the young people themselves. 

“We have seen a significant increase in both the demand and complexity of issues that young people are coming to us and, without our Centre, there would literally be nowhere for these young people to go.  We are able to provide support on a timely basis often keeping our waiting lists to weeks not months so that young people are seen sooner rather than later.”

Hampshire Chronicle:

Linda, the charity's pyschotherapist, works alongside manager Wendy Herbert, with the youth service currently seeing more than 2000 young people a year. Both Linda and Wendy's roles entails therapeutic work, support work, youth clubs, parental advice, day to day management, fund raising, finance and cleaning to accommodate the day to day demands of the service.

For more on Youth in Romsey go to yir.org.uk/.

Posting on Facebook, Youth in Romsey said: “We would like to say a massive 'Thank You' to Waitrose who have donated £750 to enable us to offer our services to young people through the summer holidays. We rely on donations so being supported by our local Waitrose store means a lot to us. Thank You Waitrose!”

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As part of the Waitrose campaign ‘give a little love’ the supermarket chain has been donating money (totalling £1 million) to help people who may be struggling to feed their families during the summer holidays. Waitrose has been working with a number of local community organisations including Youth in Romsey to ensure support is reaching people who need it most.

For more go to waitrose.com/ecom/content/about-us/communities/give-a-little-love.