South Abingdon Children’s Centre – Crayon Fence

Crayon Fence
At the South Abingdon Children’s Centre, on Caldecott Chase, the Mayor of Abingdon, Cllr Charlie Birks, did a bit of DIY to fix the last crayon to the fence.Crayon Fence
He also gave a speech thanking everybody who helped get the centre back up and running. It is now run by the Abingdon Carousel Charity.

It is the end of National Volunteers Week – a week in which the UK celebrates volunteers and says thank you to them for the contribution that they make. Charlie thanked all the volunteers who have given time to get the children’s centre working, or who volunteered elsewhere in Abingdon.
Crayon Fence
There is a named crayon for each of the organisations that have helped provide funding or done work to make sure the Children’s Centre opened.

Other news from the Children’s Centre is that a new Saturday Club has started and it runs between 9.30am and 12. They do things like stories, science, cooking, planting and gardening, music, art and crafts. Parents or carers stay with the children, who can be any age – although activities will mostly suit pre-schoolers.

4 thoughts on “South Abingdon Children’s Centre – Crayon Fence

  1. Hester

    National Volunteers Week seems to have slipped by unnoticed so, although I have said it before I thought it was worth giving another shout-out for the many hundreds of people who do voluntary work in Abingdon.
    Some people think of volunteering as working in charity shops, but here it could include: helping with youth or sport clubs, doing practical tasks for elderly people, fundraising for all sorts of causes, looking after our local wildlife and nature areas, helping run activities for people with health or mobility difficulties, helping with town events – most of the big ones are run wholly by volunteers – school parent associations, running social activities, helping children with reading or foreigners with English, etc etc. Then there are more formal roles, such as School Governors, Citizens Advice, town councillors etc. This is by no means a complete list – apologies to those I have missed – but well done to all involved, the town would be a dismal place without them.

    Reply
  2. Horsesmouth

    Hester I get all of that but how do you/we help those who slip through the net and get little or no help especially those with mental health problems and i refer in particular to three women who walk the town?
    The first is a bedraggled thinish woman who lives off Ock street and is often found outside Weatherspoons where sympathetic customers give her their change, her clothes are little more than rags- why is she existing like this?
    The second is equally if not more pitiful, clearly a very disturbed person she was given an asbo a few months ago and banned from the town centre for being abusive and threatening, I saw her in town today and she looks dreadful, mated hair wearing clothes you wouldn’t give to a charity shop and so, so thin.
    The third is a woman often found sitting around the market place and although she appears well fed her clothes and obvious lonleyness depicts another side to her.
    I don’t know where we go with this, I really don’t, seemingly good people who for some reason have big issues that apparently society has passed them by?

    Reply
  3. hester

    Steve – there are no easy answers. I suspect that most of those you mention already get a lot of help from various organisations – voluntary and statutory – but there are no “wrap-around” services now, and by no means all of those affected would want them. Every individual is different, some are on their own through choice, others would love to have someone to care for them. Some have been offered help and support, but rejected it; others may indeed have fallen through the net and not been offered it.
    In the “old days” people like this would have been less visible – they would either have been cared for by their families or institutionalised. Rightly or wrongly, the latter is no longer an available option: if families aren’t around or can’t help, the GPs and support agencies do their best – but no-one has a magic wand to make everything right for people.
    It is, as you say,very distressing, but there are a lot of good people out there trying to help.

    Reply
  4. Horsesmouth

    Indeed Hester indeed but when you see people like this it makes you realise just how fickle ( and cruel) life can be and that we should take nothing for granted. What’s the worst thing anyone can imagine? Would it be homelessness or loneliness?

    Reply

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