Thank you #teamperham

Volunteers’ Manager Lynn Bayliss was delighted to welcome a group of 15 – 17 year olds from the National Citizen Service (NCS), Reading to the Royal Berkshire Hospital earlier today to receive their kind donation of over 25 boxes of gifts for patients.

NCS participant and #teamperham director Zoe Rowse explained: “Each member of the group signed up to the four week summer holiday experience which gives teenagers between the ages of 15-17 the opportunity to meet new people and build skills for work and life.  Although it is a nationally run programme all of our group is from Reading or the surrounding area.”

In week one participants stay at an outdoor activity centre and take part in a series of adrenaline-fuelled challenges like rock climbing, canoeing, hiking and archery.  These help to build team spirit and encourage the youngsters to step outside of their comfort zone and develop new skills.

“After the initial week away the team reunited and lived as a group away from home, in uni-style accommodation.  We spent the week meeting people from the local community and organisations, and decided what we were going to do for our social action plan,” continued Zoe.

“We came up with the idea of making boxes of useful gifts for people in hospital.  This meant we had to raise money to be able to buy the things we wanted.”

The team decided they would take on 99 challenges to raise the necessary funds and asked friends and family to sponsor them.

They were delighted that at the end of their week of challenges they had raised over £300 to purchase goods for their boxes.

On welcoming the group to the hospital Lynn said: “Thank you so much for your kind donation.  Gifts like these make such a difference to our patients who really appreciate them. I hope that the experience has been fun and you’ve built some important work and life skills.”

August 2016