Wooden Spoon – Transforming the lives of young people

Hello, my name is Charlotte and firstly I would like to thank you for showing an interest in my blog!  My chosen charity is the Wooden Spoon.  I chose this charity as I think that it started from something so unusual and developed into an extremely successful charity concluding to my opinion which is that anyone can be successful in helping anyone! It is quite a popular charity if you have a wide knowledge of rugby events; if not then you may not have come across it.

A school in Watcombe, Torquay called Coombe Pafford caters for over 200 pupils who have moderate learning difficulties. The Head Teacher Mike Lock was becoming more and more concerned at the fact of the vast majority of his pupils leaving his school were not able to obtain any employment. He had a great vision though! Mr Lock wanted to create a vocational curriculum which would prepare the students in a better start after they left and enable them to earn a living by themselves.

It was a great idea. But the school didn’t have the facilities or resources. They didn’t have any money either. They needed to raise £400,000.  This would be used to build a Business and Enterprise centre to provide construction and motor vehicle training. Coombe Pafford School applied for grants and did a lot of fundraising themselves and eventually got to about £270,000. By this time there were no fundraising efforts left. They had heard about the Wooden Spoon and decided to prepare a presentation to ask for their support and were delighted as well as overwhelmed to receive a donation of £100,000. Without the fund from the Wooden Spoon Mike Lock is convinced that the school would be in a completely different position than the successful on they are in today.

But it didn’t end there… that was just the beginning.

The new centre was successful from day one; it wasn’t only just used by the pupils at Coombe Pafford but by the pupils from ten other local schools and it soon became obvious that there was a need of there being another one. Mr Lock applied for a national grant of £500,000 and because of the success rate with working with other schools, the second unit was built. It included five working bathrooms, an electrical training room, a painting, decorating room and a tiling room and a bricklaying area.

A café was also built which cost £670,000 which delivers hospitality and catering and will open to the public in September this year. As well as a café, a hair salon was created adjacent to the café.

The key message that needs to be stressed is that without the Wooden Spoon donation, none of these new facilities would have been constructed.
 

 
Thank you very much for taking the time to read my blog! For extra information about the Wooden Spoon you can always visit their website www.woodenspoon.com Please help all children have the opportunities they should! It would be really helpful if you could answer the following questions and maybe just give me some general feedback. If you choose to leave a response, it would be even more helpful if you could state your hometown and country (if not in the UK!)

• Had you heard about this charity before?
• Do you now feel more informed about the projects that the Wooden Spoon fund?
• Would you now consider or be prepared to:-

• Donate
• Sign up to receive Spoon news? (newsletter on the charity)
• Join a fundraising campaign?
• Tell our family or friends?

Thank you for taking the time and interest to read my blog