The youth of today are the future of tomorrow.
But did you know that over 34,000 young people are living in poverty across Leicester? That they are living without the same opportunities to succeed as their peers?
We believe that every young person deserves to have their voice heard and receive valuable encouragement and support to enter adulthood with confidence.
Luckily, the young people of Leicester have Focus.
Focus Charity have been helping young people in the Leicester area for over 30 years.
Supporting 13–25-year-olds, Focus run programmes that empower young people to overcome life’s obstacles. They help build their confidence, life skills and self-esteem.
Focus operates under the guiding principle that every young person should have someone to talk to, somewhere to go, and something positive to do.
By bringing a diverse group of young people together, Focus helps open their eyes to new possibilities and interests, and opportunities to break the cycle of deprivation.
Everything Community get introduced to Focus by one of our sales team
Focus Charity was brought to our attention by one of our sales representatives. We found out that Focus had helped them personally in the past.
When we found out more about the charity, we knew straight away that we wanted to do something to support the work they were doing in the Leicester community.
One of their recent social media posts was about the importance of their kitchen, and how they used cooking as an alternative education tool to help build life skills and independence.
The post mentioned that their kitchen was too small to have many people in there at once. This got us thinking…
Everything Global hosts a Ready, Steady, Cook challenge
We met with Luke St. Denis from Focus to discuss how we could help. Our kitchen (Paulie’s Diner) seemed to be just what the group were looking for.
This would bring a diverse group of young people together at Everything Global HQ, and they could use our kitchens to cook a three-course meal.
It would be a fun event for the guests and also help develop their cooking skills and education around preparing, cooking and serving a three-course meal.
We also agreed to provide the guests with a tour of our offices and answer any questions they might have.
Ready and raring to go
The day of the challenge came and all of us at Everything Global were excited about the day ahead.
A nervous, but excited group of young people turned up, with various ingredients and a lot of enthusiasm for the task at hand. ‘Paulies Diner’, named after our CEO Paul Rowlett, was about to be used like it had never been used before!
It was lovely to see them working together to prep and cook. They were all supportive (maybe a little competitive!) and helped each other out when needed.
An impressive three-course meal
The menu for the day was Turkish Soup for starters, Vegetable Lasagne for the main and Cookies to finish.
Claire (CSR Manager) was one of the judges and she was very impressed with the skill set of the group, and the quality of food they prepared.
The group were extremely tidy and organised – making sure each area of the kitchen was cleaned up as they cooked. It was an absolute pleasure to have them at Everything Global headquarters.
After the challenge, the group got a full tour of the offices and were able to ask the team at Everything Global about our roles and what we do. Hopefully, we gave them some good advice to think of for the future!
Our highlight was seeing the faces of the group when they saw the LCFC Rocket and took photos with it!
Does your charity need support?
At Everything Community our mission is to support and manage the social responsibility and community support initiatives of the Everything Global Group.
If you’re a registered charity and want to talk about how we can potentially work together, we’d love to hear from you at hello@everythingcommunity.org
We’re keen on helping all charities and community causes where we can, but we prioritise requests from smaller charities and those that are local to the Leicester area
More about Focus
Focus have been working with the young people of Leicester for 30 years.
With a dedicated board of Trustees and eight members of staff, Matt Lilley leads the team to empower more young people to get the skills and training they need to be able to succeed in their daily lives.
The charity provides a wide variety of projects throughout the year to support 13–25-year-olds.
To find out more about Focus, visit https://www.focus-charity.co.uk/
