North Yorkshire Youth, a charity based in Thirsk, has received £107,062 from the Coalition Government’s Transition Fund in order to develop its services for the County’s children and young people.

North Yorkshire Youth provides a range of services and activities for 4-25yr olds, with over 6,000 visitors to its Carlton Lodge Outdoor Centre in 2010. The organisation provides support to over 100 community-based youth groups around North Yorkshire and last year helped 441 young people to volunteer.

Managed by the BIG Lottery Fund, the Cabinet Office’s Transition Fund was announced in November 2010 with the aim of ensuring the sustainability of charities whose income has been severely affected by cuts in public spending. Nationally, North Yorkshire Youth is one of 18 charities to receive support from the fund as part of the first wave of beneficiaries announced this week. Currently it is the only recipient in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

Simon Hills, Chief Executive of North Yorkshire Youth said, “This funding is great news for the organisation and our [50] staff, but it’s even better news for children and young people in North Yorkshire – as a truly not-for-profit organisation, every penny of this funding will go into improving services and providing more and better activities for them. This isn’t an investment in our charity, this is an investment in opportunity for North Yorkshire’s young people.”

The funding, which will become available immediately, will be used by North Yorkshire Youth to develop new activities at Carlton Lodge Outdoor Centre, create new jobs that will increase income for the charity, and to support more partnership work with other youth organisations in the region.

For further information

Simon Hills, Tel: 01845 587 932; email: simon@nyy.org.uk

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