13 January 2016

On Friday 4th March 70 people completed Sleep Easy 2016!

Thank You to everyone who participated in and or donated to our event. It was a huge success with £28,322 raised to date!  

Picture1

Congratulations to those currently at the top of our fundraising leader board!

 Leader Final

A glimpse of what happened on the night…

Welcome Catering

Claire kindly kept us fed and watered!

Gillian and Louise Curd

Sleep Easy veterans Louise Curd and

YMCA Derbyshire CEO Gillian Sewell

Sam and Hayley - Purpose Media

Hayley & Sam from Purpose Media

Toyota

Mandy Evans from Toyota

 

Ibox Creative

Team iBox Creative

Team Geldards

Team Geldards

YMCA Derbyshire

Participants from YMCA Derbyshire

prelude

 

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Fire

Time round the fire

subs

A big Thank You to Pride Park Subway

Amanda

Local MP Amanda Solloway being interviewed by the BBC

David Finn

Our Participations Manager David Finn arrived at 6am

with our residents to start the clear up!

Residents

Our residents cleared the site at 6am and we’re

grateful that many had slept rough so they don’t

have to!

What is Sleep Easy?

Sleep Easy is a YMCA fundraising initiative raising money to help change the lives of vulnerable young people.

What difference does Sleep Easy make?

A staggering £35,800 was raised at our 2015 Sleep Easy event. This money went to our Safe Front Door campaign which enabled us to provide;

  • 211 people with a safe place to live
  • Personalised 1:1 support resulting in; 45 people moving on to live independently and 53 gaining employment
  • 10 young people to take part in our Toyota work experience project resulting in 5 gaining employment and 4 pursuing further education
  • 15 young people to gain a Business Mentor giving the extra support needed to gain employment resulting in 8 young people gaining employment

The young people we support arrive at our door with a variety of issues such as facing homelessness, relationship breakdowns, neglect, abuse, mental health, learning difficulties, substance abuse, exploitation. The money we raise from events such as Sleep Easy enable us to provide the vital support our young people need to move on to live independently and become contributing members of our society.

We’d like to quickly tell you about one of the young people we supported last year;

Mitch arrived at our door in December 2014, he arrived in a depressed state and spent the first 3 weeks alone in his room. Gradually with the help of our staff Mitch started engaging in positive activities, he joined the football team and took part in Derby County Football Club’s Achieve FC sports leadership programme – here he also had the opportunity to visit St James’s Park and meet Prince William. Mitch was then supported to join the Toyota Work Experience programme. He completed the 24 week programme with 100% attendance, improved his Maths and English, received help producing a CV and preparing for an interview and also completed 120 hours work experience.

“All of us who graduated the programme had tough moments, we all felt at times we couldn’t meet some of the challenges presented to us. The support we received from YMCA Derbyshire and Toyota gave us the confidence to complete the programme. We improved our self-confidence and learnt how you need to conduct yourself at work. For all of us it’s been the best programme we’ve ever been involved in”.

In October 2015 Mitch gained full time employment at Green Metals Toyota UK’s recycling plant. He’s moved out of YMCA Derbyshire in to his own flat. He’s doing great!! Mitch is thankful for the staff at YMCA Derbyshire who supported him from day one and throughout his time with us. He’s grateful to Toyota UK for providing the extra opportunities he needed to move on to become a contributing member of society.

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Above: Mitch giving his graduation speech after completing the Toyota Working Assets programme in 2015.

Media Coverage:  

The BBC kindly covered our event on Radio Derby, Daily Politics East Midlands and East Midlands Today News.

Thank You:

We are looking forward to seeing the positive impact we will have on young and vulnerable people’s lives this coming year as a result of people sleeping rough for one night! Thank You!

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