Stamford youth club run by Art Pop-Up needs urgent help before its funding runs out in June
Urgent help is needed to address the lack of support for young people in Stamford.
Funding for the town’s only open-access youth club will run out in June, leaving members with nowhere to go unless more money is found.
The weekly club has been running at The Shack on the Recreation Ground since July 2023 and regularly attracts up to 40 teenagers aged between 13 and 19. While some are simply looking for somewhere to go, others rely on the support of its professional youth workers.
Sam Roddan, who set up the youth club through her Art Pop-Up enterprise, believes Stamford’s youth provision is in crisis.
In a desperate plea for help she attended a Stamford Town Council meeting last week and played a hard-hitting audio clip of teenagers talking about their struggles. They spoke about food poverty, stress, eating disorders, financial worries and academic pressures along with other serious issues.
During the recording one teenager said: “I know I’ve got the best support and help here and I’ve found my safe space. My life has changed since I’ve been coming here.”
Sam said: “These young people have always been looking for a safe space because there just isn’t one anywhere else.
“It has taken a while to build up a relationship and gain their trust but when we did a survey last March, they told us the thing they value most is having a trusted adult to talk to.”
The youth club was initially funded by a £36,000 grant from the government’s shared prosperity fund. Since last summer it has relied on money from local groups such as Stamford Kiwanis and Stamford XT, but this will run out in June and Sam has few places to turn to for other grants.
It costs £12,000 a year to keep the club running, most of which is the cost of providing two qualified youth workers.
During last week’s meeting, Sam urged the town councillors to help.
She said: “We provide a safe and happy place for these young people but during the last 12 months we have supported them through a lot. We need your help to keep the doors open because these young people need our help.”
The council has already offered use of The Shack rent-free for three months but councillor Jonathan Waples said they need to do more.
He said: “I thought this sort of deprivation was behind us in the country and I never expected it to have an impact here.
“As a council we should support this initiative in any way we can. This is our community which is crying out for help.”
In the short term Sam is desperate to find money to keep the doors open beyond June, but she says a longer-term solution is needed to support Stamford’s teenagers.
Art Pop-Up is expected to apply for charitable status this year to open up more funding opportunities, but Sam said the youth provision may need to be run separately. Ideally she would like to see a committee of volunteers and councillors take over the youth club.
She added: “In Stamford we pride ourselves on pulling together as a community, particularly since the pandemic when we saw what an individual’s actions can do.
“We have started to build on that support but when we’ve got part of the community feeling abandoned, we’ve got to look at how we can help.”
A meeting will be set up between Sam, the town mayor Kelham Cooke and town clerk Sarah Dorson to discuss ways in which the council could help.
Anyone else who can help is encouraged to get in touch, particularly those who could help financially. Volunteers who have experience of working with teenagers, a knowledge of safeguarding and an enhanced DBS check are also needed to help run the club on Wednesday evenings.
To find out more email info@artpopup.co.uk
