Generous shoppers at Lakeside Village who helped to raise a whopping £4918 for local mental health charity, Doncaster Mind have helped to keep the charity’s Children and Young People’s (CYP) service operational until more funding was received.
The money raised during 2022 when Doncaster Mind was selected as Lakeside Village Shopping Outlet’s charity of the year has been used to support the CYP whose funding ended at the end of the year.
Laura Arthur, CEO of Doncaster Mind, said: “With the help of the funds raised by Lakeside, we were able to continue to offer our vital CYP the service until we had secured additional funding.
“This funding has also enabled us to recruit 11 more volunteers to support our services as we have seen a 52% increase in our referrals over the past 12 months and we are only expecting this to rise further. Having more people trained within our organisation means that people will be waiting less time to be seen.
“Overall, we have delivered 66 1:1 mentoring sessions between December and today that we would not have been able to deliver without the support of customers at Lakeside.
“We want to say a massive, massive thank you to both customers and staff at Lakeside. Your donations and kindness have made a real difference.”
Di Mellis, centre manager at Lakeside Village said: “It is fantastic to hear what our donations have helped to support. We are very lucky at Lakeside Village to have extremely supportive stores and very generous customers and we know that they will be thrilled that their donations have helped to support children and young people needing mental health support in the city.
Doncaster Mind offers a wide range of services to people aged 16 upwards in the city who are experiencing mental health difficulties. These include personal development courses, peer support activities, befriending, mentoring, art therapy, counselling and support for those who have been bereaved by suicide.
Lakeside Village has supported several local charities in recent years, including Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice, Team Verrico, DonMentia and, last year’s charity of the year, Guide Dogs.