13-year-old's initiative for cash campaign that captured Bradford community's heart (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Conor’s Coins initiative boosts Holme Wood youth club campaign

9:00am Saturday 23rd February 2013 in News By Sally Clifford, T&A Reporter

When schoolboy Conor Lister handed over his pocket money to save his neighbourhood youth club in Bradford he kickstarted an ongoing campaign.

Concerned the club might lose its senior youth worker Adam Woodhouse, Conor gave up his £1 pocket money to help secure the future of The Edge, a young people’s project on Holme Wood Estate which was set up more than a decade ago through the Holme Christian Community.

“We need a youth centre in our environment,” said the 13-year-old.

A year later, Conor’s Coins has so far raised more than £550 – and captured the community’s heart in the process. Since Conor gave his initial donation, Mr Woodhouse has handed out Smartie tubes within the community, a fundraising initiative he’d tried before in a previous role.

“I got some Smartie tubes, gave them out as I had in a previous organisation and asked them to eat the Smarties and fill the tubes with 20 pence pieces,” he said. Mr Woodhouse said older members of the community had particularly enjoyed filling the tubes – one Smartie tube holds £13 in 20p pieces. “Some of them even brought in carrier bags full of coppers, others are filling Smartie tubes, some of them put a £5 note in the tube,” he said.

The strength of support for the campaign is indicative of the importance The Edge has on the estate, according to Mr Woodhouse.

“There are young people we work with who have been kicked out of school.

“If it wasn’t for the fact they can come to us and do a qualification they would not achieve anything and potentially would not be getting jobs. It is changing lives and it’s giving them bigger ambitions than they would have had.”