ON Saturday, July 6 we celebrated the second birthday of Warrington Youth Zone, as well as it being a really special day with over 700 people attending the event, it was an opportunity to look back over the past two years.

Following a 12-year journey of lots of highs and lows including the very near purchase of Mr Smiths, we opened the doors of the Youth Zone on July 2,2022.

It has been a rollercoaster of a journey since we opened with our membership growing to over 9,000, which was 4,000 more than we targeted.

Over the past two years we have been focusing on embedding and developing our programme for children and young people and also building our network of supporters and donors without whom we would not be able to continue our work. We have been open every weekday from 4pm for young people and each Saturday and Sunday from 11am.

We have delivered a broad range of events in partnership with organisations from across Warrington including Lunar New Year with Mulan Culture, The Robot Pageant with Warrington UTC, Apprenticeship Fairs in partnership with the Pledge and The Presidents Cup with the OnSide Network. In May 2023 we hosted a large community street party for the Kings Jubilee.

Earlier this year we managed to secure funding to ensure that children and young people with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) could access the Youth Zone with the support of a specially trained Youth Worker able to provide Personal Care and administer medication as required.

We look forward to another busy summer in which we will work with over 5,000 children and young people across various sites around the town. Over 120 people are employed by Warrington Youth Zone, and we have the support of over 100 volunteers without whom we would not be able to provide the range of services to children and young people.

If you are someone who would like to support children and young people, we are always looking for volunteers to enhance our 7 day per week programme. If you have children, grandchildren or nieces and nephews please get in touch we would like to show you around the Youth Zone and hopefully sign them up as members.

For more information please contact us info@wyz.org.uk call 997271 or visit our website warringtonyouthzone.org