A Stoke-on-Trent based project has been awarded £4,800 from the Police and Crime Commissioner’s People Power Fund.
The Vale Park Community Initiative has been awarded funding for two different schemes to help young people in the community.
One involves running football tournaments every Friday, before key match days, to encourage young people to get involved. The other sees Vale Park working with Staffordshire Police in a four lesson module that teaches young children about subjects such as road safety and the role of the police.
Both schemes give young people the opportunity to gain valuable skills and to improve their health and fitness through exercise.
The football tournaments have been extremely popular in the area with 420 young people taking part so far, over three games. The funding has helped to award the winners of the tournaments with a trophy each and 20 free tickets to the Port Vale game, the following day.
As part of his commitment to local communities, the Commissioner is providing £500,000 in 2014/15 through the People Power Fund in the form of grants of between £100 and £3,000.
The fund is supporting locally-driven community safety activities in communities throughout Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.
Mr Ellis said: “I really enjoyed watching the football tournament to see the work being done and to see how well young children in the area are engaging.
“Projects like this are great for engaging young local people, giving them a chance to keep active whilst teaching them a new skill.”
Chris Taylor, Head of Education for Port Vale Academy, said: “Our football tournaments for young adults have been providing activities in the ST6 area. It has gone from a small interest to being extremely popular.
“We have had positive feedback not only from the participants but also from their families as we are engaging with their children.
“Having the money has meant that we can run the tournaments on a regular basis and have new activities, attracting further interest.
“In the future we hope to run a cricket tournament, which the children have asked for, and also a girls’ football tournament.”
For further details about the Vale Park Community Initiative contact Chris Taylor by calling 07517637272 or email chris_5959@hotmail.co.uk
For more details on funding opportunities visit www.staffordshire-pcc.gov.uk/fund
