Blog | Middlesbrough Voluntary Development Agency

Grassroots support makes a real difference: Hope4Summer

5 December 2016 - 5:45pm

A guest blog by Heather Black, Development Officer, Together Middlesbrough & Cleveland

For the past three years I’ve been involved in developing Hope4Summer – a project that brings together churches and community groups in different locations across Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland. Hope4Summer offers fun activities and healthy food for children during the summer holidays, because we know that for many local families the summer break is a struggle with children at home 24/7 and no free school meals.

Schools out for summer – A grass-roots response to families under pressure

21 July 2016 - 11:43am

Whilst many of us eagerly await our summer break many of the families across Middlesbrough will be counting the days until their children return to school. The number of Middlesbrough families living in poverty is a statistic most of us are far too familiar with and one that increases during the school summer break. Families struggling to manage throughout the year can hit a real crisis point during the six weeks summer break. Middlesbrough has one of the highest statistics of children on free school meals, this means that for many families, food poverty is a major issue throughout August.

A decade at MVDA…

31 May 2016 - 2:39pm

I celebrate 10 years at MVDA today. A whole decade. How time flies. I've held a number of different roles in the organisation over the years and took up office as CEO at the start of April. It seems appropriate to write a few lines to share the adventure of my journey with you.