Stirling church partners with the community for Olympic holiday club to remember
Published on 16 August 2024 3 minutes read
A church in Stirling marked the Olympics with a holiday club to remember thanks to support from volunteers and local organisations in the local community.
St Mark's in Raploch, which is a priority area congregation, worked with charities and companies to provide activities for around 45 children which included a hot meal at the end of each session.
Rev Barry Hughes explained that different businesses offered support.
"Sainsbury's said what would you like and I asked for some healthy, snacks and I came away with an overflowing trolley of fruit and milk and cheese – it was great," he said.
"The local pub landlord gives us juice and water for the kids.
"The church has also formed a strong partnership with a company in the area specialising in recruitment called Contract Scotland.
"They got in touch with me towards the end of last year and said we would really like to improve our community footprint and we'd like to see how we can work with you," Mr Hughes explained.
"Since then they have worked with us and supported in various ways, some of it financial.
"Last Christmas we did a kids' party for people in Raploch and the company sent people to help and also did some home-baking for it.
"This year, each day of the holiday club they sent two members of staff – on company time – to help.
"On the last day this included the company director.
"We got them PVGed and the members of staff absolutely loved doing it."
John-Paul Toner, director of "Contract Scotland, said: "We've long believed in the importance of supporting our local community and partnering with St Mark's Church has enabled us to make a very immediate (and hopefully meaningful) impact.
"Participating in this year's summer holiday club was incredibly rewarding, as it allowed members of our team to make a small but tangible difference to the lives of the kids that attended, while providing them with a safe environment to learn, play and have loads of fun.
"From an admittedly one step removed perspective, it's impossible to overstate the importance to the local community of the work that Rev Barry, Marie Clare and St Mark's do, and I'm humbled that Contract Scotland has been able to play a very small part in supporting that incredible work."
Themed around ‘Fit for a King', the activities at the church ran for a week from 12.30pm onwards each day.
Mr Hughes said: "We deliberately ran in the afternoon as there's an organisation called Big Noise who are a music charity and they ran in the morning.
"Many kids got three meals as they went to Breakfast Club, they got lunch at Big Noise and then we gave them dinner."
Even the hot meal each day was funded by a grant from Stirling Council.
They also had support from Active Stirling, the leisure arm of the council, whom the church invited to help with the outdoor activities.
Explaining the format each day, Mr Hughes said:
"At any one time half of the children might have been doing crafts, with the other half doing sports outside with Active Stirling.
"There were Bible stories each day, there were songs, there was a memory verse for each day.
"On the last day of the holiday club we took all of the kids plus their families on a day out.
"We received some very generous donations to do this the last two years.
"We have to be so much more creative with what we can do."
Reflecting on his experience of involving the community, Mr Hughes said: "I'd like to thank all of our volunteers and partner organisations, without whom we could not have run such a successful holiday club, which has received fantastic feedback from across the community.
"We may not be a cash rich church, but we are rich as a community in terms of the number of volunteers who give their time to events such as the holiday club - we belief in partnerships and see this as the way forward to help spread the love of God across this community."