3D Youth Services has been operating in the Moorland area of Lincoln for three and a half years. Working with over 50 volunteers they help vulnerable families and provide a unique role in building a better community. They do this by providing training to volunteers who in turn provide services such as counselling, family mediation and 1:1 mentoring of troubled kids.

We were invited to go along on a Thursday evening, which is when they hold a free youth club for 8 – 13 year olds. As I pulled up to the Moorland Community Centre I couldn’t fail to notice the multi-million pound super-school for 3 – 18 year olds being built just metres from the door.

Accompanying the Charity’s two Executive Directors are a number of volunteers - parents of kids at the club and members of the community who just want to help out. The adults are keen to tell me how the club has made their children more relaxed, happy, polite, respectful and confident. In a community that is in the top 1% of most deprived areas in the country, there has been no crime around the community centre for 18 months. Through their relentless work 3D has earned the respect of local residents.

In the main hall, there is a buffet of fruity snacks and squash which everyone dives into, not missing any of the junk food that kids are so regularly accused of wolfing down. At one end of the room an area has been marked off using chairs to form a small indoor hockey pitch. There are skipping ropes, hula-hoops, table football and other active games, as well as a table with a pile of home-baked gingerbread, children carefully decorating them to take home later. A small room to the side hosts the last in a 6 week run of digital music making (in partnership with soundLINCS), whilst in the kitchen kids work on a joint colouring project.

One of the volunteers is teaching a group how to make felt flowers from wool, which is where I met 9 year old Cerys. We share a passion for beautiful shoes, and she is to be my guide for the remainder of the evening. Cerys loves coming to the club, grinning she tells me “it’s really great ‘cos you to get to do lots of different things that you don’t get to do otherwise.” Cerys is going to be a vet when she grows up, and she proudly shows me pictures of her with animals from various visits the club has organised.

I was full of mixed emotions as I left. I felt proud that I had the opportunity to see a group of over 60 people in a 60 year age range all having such fun together, and making a real difference to community spirit. I can’t get away from the feeling that they deserve so much more though. They need funding to buy better equipment and recruit and train more volunteers, not just for the club but also for the other projects 3D Youth run. With the monetary support they deserve, 3D Youth could make an even bigger positive impact on this struggling area of Lincoln.

The Lincolnshire Community Foundation has awarded several small grants to 3D Youth in the past through various grants programmes oriented around youth themes.