Arco donates £3,000 to Run With It charity to boost literacy and numeracy skills in young people

SUPPORT: Anna Harvatt, left, Community Engagement Manager at Arco, with Kate Hill, Lead Tutor at Run With It, outside Flemingate Shopping Centre in Beverley

By Simon Bristow

Hull safety firm Arco has donated £3,000 to local charity Run With It to help develop literacy and numeracy skills in young people.

Arco, the UK’s leading safety supplier, is also encouraging staff to take part in volunteering opportunities across all Run With It programmes, including the aiding in the delivery of two new ten-week education programmes in Beverley in September, which will benefit up to 60 students.

In the last two years, Run With It has expanded across the East Riding and has opened two new centres at Bridlington Football Club and Flemingate Shopping Centre in Beverley, which facilitate education programmes one day a week. With Arco’s support, the charity will now be able to increase these centres’ capacity to run the programmes to two days a week, resulting in extra support for four schools a week at each centre.

Anna Harvatt, Community Engagement Manager at Arco, said: “At Arco, we are committed to helping young people achieve their potential and we have a long history of supporting schools and educational charities to achieve this aim.

“Through the Arco Community Panel, we are delighted to be supporting Run With It and enabling them to expand their offer in Beverley, which will help benefit dozens of students from the town and the surrounding area by improving their knowledge, confidence, self-esteem and mental wellbeing.”

The charity’s programmes run over ten weeks and aim to engage young people, who require additional support, in creative activities, encouraging learning and helping children see the link between what they learn in the classroom and the real world. Participants receive two hours help per week (twenty hours in total) from Run With It staff.

At the Flemingate Centre they take part in activities including using maps and leaflets to explore the Shopping Centre and utilise the facilities to improve literacy and maths skills, teamwork and problem solving, alongside a variety of other imaginative sessions.

Lisa Dawson, Director of Run With It, said: “We are very grateful to Arco for agreeing to sponsor two programmes at our new Beverley Education Centre.

“This funding will support pupils to develop literacy and numeracy skills in a real-life setting using various retail outlets and businesses at Flemingate Shopping Centre. The children will complete a ten-week programme with all the work supporting and applying what they have learnt in school.

“Raising self-esteem and developing confidence are key aspects of the programme and Run With It will work with the schools to identify those children who would most benefit.”

The charity is also hoping to follow these programmes with a one-day “enrichment” experience at the MKM Stadium. Run With It is aiming to offer more schools the opportunity to engage with the educational programmes by increasing the number of days it runs at Flemingate, and the number of programmes it organises during the next academic year.