Arco, the UK’s leading safety company, has donated £3,000 to local charity Run With It, an educational support non-profit charity, to help develop literacy and numeracy skills in local young people.
Arco is also encouraging colleagues to involve themselves with volunteering opportunities across all Run With It programmes, including aiding in the delivery of two new ten-week education programmes in Beverley during September, benefitting up to 60 students.
In the last two years, Run With It has expanded across the East Riding of Yorkshire and has opened two new centres at Bridlington Football Club and Flemingate Shopping Centre in Beverley, which facilitate the education programmes one day a week.
With Arco’s support, the charity will now be able to increase these centres’ capacity to run the programmes to two days a week, resulting in extra support for four schools a week at each centre.
Anna Harvatt, Community Engagement Manager at Arco, said:
“At Arco, we are committed to helping young people achieve their potential and we have a long history of supporting schools and educational charities to achieve this aim.
“Through the Arco Community Panel, we are delighted to be supporting Run With It and enabling them to expand their offer in Beverley, which will help benefit dozens of students from the town and the surrounding area by improving their knowledge, confidence, self-esteem and mental wellbeing.”
The charities’ programmes run over ten weeks and aim to engage young people, who require additional support, in creative activities, encouraging learning and helping children see the link between what they learn in the classroom and the real world.
Participants receive two hours per week (twenty hours in total) from Run With It staff. At the Flemingate Centre they take part in activities including using maps and leaflets to explore the Shopping Centre and utilise the facilities to improve literacy and maths skills, teamwork and problem solving, alongside a wide variety of other imaginative sessions.
Lisa Dawson, Director of Run With It, said:
“We are very grateful to Arco for agreeing to sponsor two programmes at our new Beverley Education Centre.
“This funding will support pupils to develop literacy and numeracy skills in a real-life setting using various retail outlets and businesses at Flemingate Shopping Centre.
“The children will complete a 10-week programme with all the work supporting and applying what they have learnt in school.
“Raising self-esteem and developing confidence are key aspects of the programme and Run With It will work with the schools to identify those children who would most benefit.”
The charity is also looking to follow these programmes up with a one-day enrichment experience at the MKM Stadium. Run With It is aiming to offer more schools the opportunity to engage with the educational programmes by increasing the number of days it runs at Flemingate and the number of programmes that it organises during the next academic year.
