Member Article

Local domestic abuse charity feeling top of the crops after winning award

Centre 56, a domestic abuse charity in North Liverpool, has won the Travis Perkins Managed Services Community Award for Social Progress and Equality.

The award celebrates community groups that demonstrate the best effort in supporting individuals in their communities who are facing the greatest need to tackle social deprivation.

Centre 56 is one of the oldest domestic abuse support units in the country, having just celebrated its 45th anniversary. Over the past few years it has supported 1,305 children through its specialist nursery and after-school club. All these children have been affected by domestic abuse and have had a traumatic start in life.

Travis Perkins Managed Services awarded the £5,000 Social Progress and Equality prize fund towards Centre 56’s healthy eating programme.

Pat Roberts, the Nursery and After-school Manager at Centre 56, said: “Food poverty is an issue in deprived areas like North Liverpool.

“We realised some of the children were being given unhealthy food at home, so we decided to tackle this issue by providing free healthy hot meals at lunchtimes for the children and free cooking classes for parents.

“The prize fund will help us to extend this work, and we are going to create our own allotment where we can grow our own fresh fruit and vegetables. We’re going to involve the children so they receive homegrown healthy snacks whilst gaining new skills and experiences”.

Stuart Hough, Managing Director of Travis Perkins Managed Services, said: “Travis Perkins Managed Services is an organisation with social value at its core and being able to support charities such as Centre 56 is something that I am very proud of. Centre 56 is a fantastic charity that provides a hugely important service for families and children and are worthy winners of the Social Progress and Equality award.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Gary Jones .