Rock Kitchen Harris Big Sleep Out!

On Friday 11th September, staff from Leicester based creative agency, Rock Kitchen Harris, will be spending a night under the stars taking part in a sleepout to raise money and awareness of the work we do at The Y. 

Rock Kitchen Harris have been huge supporters of The Y, and have selected us as their chosen charity for 2020. 

They will be sleeping out in their gardens or living rooms to get a glimpse into the experience a homeless young person can have. Although they won’t be together in person, they will be keeping in touch via video calls throughout the sleepout.

They have a goal of fundraising £1000 whilst learning more about homelessness. If you want to support Rock Kitchen Harris on their fundraising endeavour, you can donate via their JustGiving page: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/rkhbigsleepout

They will be sharing more about the event on their social media so be sure to follow @rkhleicester to see what they get up to.

Miss Leicestershire 2020 Supports The Y

Tia Carter, a local Leicestershire resident, won the title of Miss Leicestershire 2020 back in April. This year’s contestants were all invited to raise money for The Y as part of the Miss Leicestershire contest. Tia raised £220 for us which is an incredible achievement given the circumstances faced by the contestants. Tia was the first Miss England finalist to be crowned at home in Leicester by her older sister during lockdown. Along with her sister Sapphire, they became the only sisters in the history of Miss Leicestershire to both hold the title (Sapphire was Miss Leicestershire in 2017). Tia’s sponsor for this year is Richard Clarke.

Tia has chosen The Y and Warning Zone, both important charities, to support during her time as Miss Leicestershire. Tia will be launching a raffle to raise funds for both causes on the 31st of July and we’ll share details of this as soon as we can. Taking part in the raffle is an easy way you can support The Y and Warning Zone. From September onwards, Tia will be preparing for the Miss England Finals currently being planned as a socially distanced live event in October. We wish Tia all the very best of luck with the raffle and her preparations for the finals.

We’d also like to take this opportunity to thank Miss England for selecting us as the chosen charity for Miss Leicestershire. We were delighted to help some of the contestants with their fundraising. Beauty with a Purpose has also pledged an incredible £6000 which will cover the costs of running one of our move on houses for an amazing 12 months. Thank you!

Cirque du Y – The fundraiser with a twist

Our first major fundraising event, ‘Cirque Du Y’ was a huge success raising over £10,000 for The Y.

Our Circus themed bonanza provided comedy, tricks and arts that would make the Big Top proud, elegant and sassy burlesque style dancing, and live musics sets to dance the night away. We also featured a charity auction with some amazing prizes, popcorn, candyfloss and cakepops. We provided a buffet for all our guests

We could not have done it without amazing support from Gallagher who inspired us and became the headline supporter. We even had live music featuring Gallagher’s own Andrew Franks of Fourteen Down on vocals.

Thank you must also go to supporters NEXT, Westerby Group and RSM UK.

We also welcomed Stocks Taylor Benson, Pure Homecare, Obsidian Tax, trustees of The Y and some of Leicester’s fabulous community.

Entertainment was provided by SkyTribe Dance Studios and Foolhardy Circus and we enjoyed live music from Kevin Hewick, Fourteen Down, Hard Lines and
The Veneers. Thank you so much for taking part and performing at our fundraiser!

Thanks to Amye (Midnight Baker13) for the cakepop centre pieces and for your help on the night.

Thanks to Asda (Oadby) and MOD Pizza for a splendid buffet.

 

 

 

Andy Ran The London Marathon

Andy Maudsley completed the 2019 London Marathon course in support of #TeamYMCA in a fantastic 3 hours and 56 mins! That’s an average pace of 8min 27 secs per mile and if any of you run at all, you’ll know that’s a pretty fast speed to maintain for that distance. We are so very proud of him and his achievement and we cannot thank him enough.

Andy is husband to Anna, our Director of Accommodation, Care & support. Andy has been a fabulous supporter of The Y and previously took part in Race to the Stones; a 100 kilometre non-stop run or walk along the Ridgeway (The Chilterns to the North Wessex Downs).

This year we were delighted that Andy received a charity marathon place from YMCA England & Wales and as his local YMCA we’ll also receive a share of his fundraising. We just wanted to share with you an update after the event. If you’d like to support his efforts, the fundraising is still open and any contribution would be massively appreciated. You can donate online here through JustGiving.

On behalf of Andy, Anna and all of us here at The Y, Thank You to everyone who has donated to Andy’s marathon and wished him well.

            

The Y “Eggxtra” Appeal

Could you buy one extra Easter egg and donate it to a young person?

We would love to collect 101 or more Easter eggs so that we can give one to each of our young people.  This is a very quick and simple gesture that anyone is welcome to undertake. Simply drop your donation in at Reception whenever you walk past our East Street building. If we receive all donations by Thursday the 18th of April, we’ll be able to distribute a little Easter gift to all residents and service users on Easter Sunday. We hope you all enjoy the festivities and invite you to spread a little bit of chocolate happiness here with us if you can. If you have any questions at all or would like to contact us about this, please email [email protected] or call 0116 204 6208.

December Round up & Thanks

Support in the Community… In November, The Y, along with some great NCS volunteers, bag packed at Asda in Oadby. We had a wonderful time and raised over £370 from generous shoppers. Asda also created some festive cheer by donating £500 to pay for our resident’s and service users over at the Y Support Project’s Christmas parties.

Pizza anyone??? December saw MOD PIZZA launch in the Highcross, and The Y was lucky enough to be chosen as their charity for the opening day. This meant The Y received all the money from all pizza sales on the day. The day raised over £2100 for The Y, with a promise of support from MOD to support The Y moving forward – We love PIZZA!

The Y’s Christmas Carol Service… What a lovely event this was. We sang carols, listened to the wonderful gospel choir and Salvation Army band, ate cake and started to feel a little festive. We sold lots of raffle tickets on the evening and even managed to raise over £100 in donations too.

Autumn Raffle… We drew The Y’s Autumn Raffle in December and raised… £669.
Thank you to everyone who bought tickets, everyone who help sell tickets and all the wonderful individuals and businesses that donated the 24 super prizes we were able to give out.

Asda Foundation… We received a £500 donation from Asda Oadby.
An amazing contribution donated to us so that we could give our residents a real festive celebration this Christmas.

Awesome people doing awesome things… In December The Y’s own Michelle convinced her mum and young son to join her for the Loughborough Santa Fun Run. It rained. Their Santa trousers disintegrated and their faces itched from the snowy white beards, but… they raised just under £350 for The Y’s Challenge 135!

More awesome people doing more awesome things… The last few weeks of December at The Y were crazy-busy, with some wonderful human beings showing us just how much good there really is in the world! We received approximately 500 shoeboxes containing; gifts, toiletries, sweet treats, stationary, hats, scarves and all manner of marvelousness! These shoeboxes were distributed to our residents, with the surplus, going on to help support our young people throughout the year. We were absolutely blown away by people’s kindness and generosity and have made some great new contacts for the future.

We had a crazy-busy December and look forward to more of the same in 2019!

We wish everyone a very Happy New Year.

    

 

Shoebox Appeal Christmas 2018

The last few weeks of December at The Y have been crazy-busy, with some wonderful human beings showing us just how much good there really is in the world! We received approximately 500 shoeboxes containing; gifts, toiletries, sweet treats, stationary, hats, scarves and all manner of marvelousness! These shoeboxes were/will be distributed to all residents, with the surplus, going on to help support our young people throughout the year. We were absolutely blown away by people’s kindness and generosity and have made some great new contacts for the future.

Donors include:

  • Beauchamp College
  • Judgemeadow Community College
  • The Cedars Academy
  • WQE College
  • Leicester City Young People’s Council
  • PPLPRS
  • Hamilton RMET
  • Stephenson College
  • St. Leonards Church Ladies Group Swithland
  • Leicester Grammar School
  • Sainsburys
  • Wreake Valley Sixth Form

There were also some individual donors and local groups. Apologies to anyone we have missed but we have been overwhelmed with them all, Incredible!

We wish you all Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year AND you know where to find us if you fancy taking on a challenge… or organising your own event!

Myra, Michelle & Ziggy Finish Loughborough’s Santa Fun Run

On Sunday 2nd December, Our Community Fundraiser, Michelle, took on her own Challenge 135. Michelle has been working hard this year supporting all of our other Challenge 135 participants and now it’s our turn to support her and say thanks for an amazing job done.

Michelle was joined by her Mum, Myra, as well as her eight year old son Ziggy, and Myra’s canine companion, Huntley. We are absolutely delighted to share that all of them completed the 5K run in Santa outfits to raise money for The Y in celebration of 135 years supporting the community of Leicester.

Michelle, speaking after the event said “What a wonderful time we had at the Loughborough Santa Fun Run yesterday. We donned our Super Santa Suits and stepped out to raise lots of money for The Y. Thank you so much to all who donated and if anyone would like to donate… there’s still time…”

You can still contribute to their efforts on their fundraising page here. A huge Congratulations and Well Done to all of you from everyone here at The Y.

      

MOD Pizza Opening Soon & Supporting The Y

MOD Pizza is coming to Leicester THIS DECEMBER. The new restaurant will open in the former home of Chimichanga – the Tex-Mex restaurant which closed in August, as part of the restructuring plan announced by Prezzo Limited earlier this year.

MOD is on a mission to be a force for good in every community it serves. In both the UK and US, MOD donates its first day’s pizza sales to a local good cause as the start of a long-term partnership.

We are absolutely delighted to be the restaurant’s opening day charity partner in Leicester and members of our team will be there on the day to support MOD Pizza and talk to customers about the support we provide to vulnerable young people in the City. Join us there for the grand opening on Thursday 6th December from 12 noon.

100% of their opening day sales will go to The Y. MOD are also giving away free pizza to the first 50 customers of the day and 10 “Free pizza for a year” prizes.

Every pizza or salad is Made On Demand, with whatever toppings you want, for one price – £7.87. That is where the name MOD comes from, “Made On Demand”. We look forward to welcoming them to Leicester City, visit their website modpizza.co.uk. You can also read more about the opening of the Leicester branch here.

Skydive October 2018

We had two amazing daredevils take part in an organised tandem skydive to raise much needed funds for The Y. Shelisha and Sheriton not only work for us as part of the theatre team but were also willing to take on this crazy challenge and raise over £1000 between them for The Y.

For lots of people, something like a skydive is a real bucket list challenge but for fundraisers, it’s also a fabulous opportunity to take on your challenge by joining an organised tandem skydive whilst raising valuable funds for a worth cause. Imagine the incredible birds eye view as you descend from around 13000ft and the adrenaline rush of those seconds of free fall at up to 120mph. This is not a challenge for everyone so kudos to thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies.

Our two superstar fundraisers were originally booked in to jump on Saturday the 6th of October. Unfortunately, due to weather conditions, this was postponed until Wednesday 10th of October where this finally happened at Langar Airfield. We cannot thank them enough for taking part, returning after it was rescheduled and raising such an incredible amount of money.

If you’d like to know more about doing a skydive for The Y, please contact [email protected] or call 0116 204 6227.

Let’s hear it for Shelisha and Sheriton, our fundraising heroes!