Featherston Community Centre is leaping into the new year with a spring in its step, thanks to funding from the Tindall Foundation and others to help support and grow activities for kids after school.
The funding will help ensure kids who aren’t into sports can engage in new activities, centre manager Joanna Baldwin said.
“We’re so blessed in Featherston, we have amazing sports. But what about the kids that don’t go that way? Or are not into sport yet?”
Initiatives being helped by the new sources of funding include a chess club [see page 8], beginner sewing classes in partnership with local charity Divine River, and a craft club.
Baldwin explained the sewing initiative with Divine River secured funding from the Featherston Community Board [FCB] and a pilot project will start in mid-February with students from South Featherston and Featherston schools interested in sewing skills.
The after-school craft club is for kids who “just enjoy being crafty”, Baldwin said. “We have a bunch of kids who really enjoy glueing and sticking and drawing.”
The club is supervised and will include snacks for participants. It starts in the first week of term and gives kids a chance to “just create stuff”, Baldwin said.
The latest grant from the Tindall Foundation was $5000 and helps “get things started”.
“Because [projects] are started, other traction kicks in community-wise. If something works for the community, they will come, they will support it. They won’t mind paying $2 or whatever if it’s something they love. But to get it going and show people and get involvement from people that perhaps wouldn’t be able to, [these initiatives] are free at the moment.”
Other projects on the horizon in Featherston this year include the completion of the centre’s remodelling of its existing kitchen to meet commercial kitchen standards, the Wāhine Unite festival in February and Fab Feathy’s launch of a new Featherston website.
“There is so much going on,” Baldwin said.
