Since January – because of you and many other like-minded neighbours – the Friends of the Rose Bowl have been able to raise over £20,000 for the Rose Bowl youth centre from our local supporters. Just to be crystal clear, without these funds, we would have been in real danger of closure next year. So thank you once again for everything you’ve been able to do for the young people of Islington.
I know it’s a real shame that we haven’t been able to meet up at our spring fundraising dinner for the last two years, and we really hope that we’ll be able to run an alternative in the near future.
This has, though, concentrated our minds and so alongside our local fundraising, by the end of this week, you will be able to donate to the Friends through AmazonSmile. This is exactly the same as buying things on Amazon, but with every purchase at smile.amazon.co.uk a donation is made to the charity of your choice at no extra cost to yourself. And if you buy anything on 21st-22nd June, Amazon will double their donation to the Friends.
Obviously, our justgiving page is still live and so you can continue to donate there as well: https://www.justgiving.com/friendsoftherosebowl
I hope you’ll also be delighted to hear that we have been able to draw in extra grants from the Worshipful Company of Grocers and the DCMS Youth Covid-19 Support Fund. We have also received approval for a grant from the Julia and Hans Rausing Trust’s Youth Centre Recovery Fund.
They’re all a bit of a mouthful, but this means that this spring, in total we have been able to raise nearly £65,000 for the Rose Bowl. We can now stop digging into our reserves and build back the youth centre to pre-covid levels of support.
In fact, we want to do better than that. We want to learn the lessons of lockdown and build new ways into the Rose Bowl ethos of reaching out to and engaging with children and young people. This means that as well as being fun and safe, the Rose Bowl can also be a place which protects and nurtures young minds through programmes designed to promote mental health and wellbeing. To this end, over the summer, we’re working to secure a new seven-year funding commitment from Islington Council to ensure that the Rose Bowl can flourish and thrive.
Many thanks once again for your continuing support. As I say, we’re trying to find a way to get our supporters together again so that we can thank you all in person and so I do hope that we’ll be able to meet up again in the coming months.
Oswin Baker
Chair, Friends of the Rose Bowl