Efforts to teach youngsters a range of practical skills at the Long Sutton Youth Shed have been given a £500 boost thanks tho a donation from Freemasons of the town’s St Mary Lodge.
The Youth Shed is an extension of the Men’s Shed concept, bringing together young people to learn a range of DIY and practical skills as diverse as construction, electrics, and woodworking. It’s hoped that the groundwork done at the Youth Shed will help students to build a better future.
An earlier example of the skills being taught is bricklaying, when the Men’s Shed worked with Buildbase for volunteers to teach bricklaying to 20 students on a 10-week course.
Each week they were given a new tool and taught how to use it, so that by the end of the course they would have a bagful of tools and the skills to get the best from them. The theory was that they would then have a firm foundation on which to earn themselves a living.
lan White, the Master of Saint Mary Lodge, is on the right of the picture above, with Youth Shed instigator and organiser Ivan Thompson and some of the youngsters in front of their woodworking builds.
The £500 donation was one of more than 70 given by Freemasons each year to worthy causes in an area from The Humber to The Wash, with each Freemasons’ Lodge nominating the good cause of their choice.
