Project 49 donate home-made cereal bars for rough sleepers

Project 49 in Southend work with local people with learning disabilities and they recently turned their attention to supporting local rough sleepers.

The group who are taking part in a volunteering programme called Can Do, (which is a City and Guilds accredited programme offered by Leonard Cheshire) have completed a Food Safety level one course allowing them to get involved with community projects, and together they voted on their favourite healthy breakfast bar recipes to make for HARP, Southend’s homeless charity.

The group then visited our day centre in York Road and donated their home-made breakfast bars which were distributed to rough sleepers and the group got to hear more about the challenges faced by people that are homeless. Wendy said “it was good to know that homeless people would enjoy something [the group] had made.”

Can Do is for young people aged 10 to 35 years who have a disability or an additional need and would like to volunteer in their local community, raise awareness of disability, and grow in confidence and this is a great example of how they are supporting people with learning disabilities to feel empowered and make a difference to others.

Joanne Dear, Volunteer Coordinator at HARP said “helping your local community is not an exclusive activity; anyone can get involved with making Southend a better place as this wonderful group of volunteers have shown. It is great to see such motivated and kind-hearted individuals being giving the support they need to play a more proactive role within their communities. Volunteering knows no boundaries, with the right support, anyone can help others. We would like to wish them the best of luck with their course.”

For more about how you can help local homeless people, click here.