Summer Activity Bags

We know that school holidays create an additional financial pressure on families, as well as an emotional toll on parents. Many parents feel overwhelmed by not being able to afford extra activities or engage in meaningful but affordable family time, or opportunities for their children to play and develop away from school.
Every day we work with families struggling to make ends meet, and most we support form part of a growing number of households in the UK that have no access to savings or ‘rainy day’ funds to help them cope through difficult times. Whilst the cost-of-living continues to endure, there is simply no resource available in an overwhelming number of family homes to stretch beyond the day-to-day essentials.
"I absolutely dread the summer holidays, it's such a long period of time with no structure and it costs so much to keep the kids occupied" - family accessing CCP support
"I already feel anxious just thinking about the summer holidays, trying to keep the kids busy is a massive challenge. My children fight so much more when they're bored" – family accessing CCP support
Last year, we facilitated a small pilot to identify families anxious about facing the added cost of the summer school holidays, and what this means for their budgets as well as their, and their children’s’, mental health and wellbeing.
With support from donors and volunteers from the public and business community, we exceeded our target and created 100 summer bags, filled with sporting equipment, games, puzzles etc for all of the family to enjoy, or to occupy a child to give parents some respite during the inevitable stresses and strains of the summer break.
This year, our vision is to reach at least 150 families, and with your help we will get there. We are targeting Gloucestershire, Dorset and South Gloucestershire to make an impact.

How can you get involved?

  • Do you have a ‘staging area’ we can use on 13th and 14th June to host small teams of volunteers to pack the bags?
  • Are you or your team looking to volunteer in a community project? We need 4 teams of 4-6 people to help.
  • Fundraising and sponsorship support. Can you fire-up your staff to get involved to fundraise for the appeal – there are a myriad of ways to fundraise, and we can support you to identify which ones suits you and gives your teams the best’ feel-good’ factor. Perhaps, as a business, you could match-fund anything your team raise in order to help us achieve our target?
  • Could you set up a collection point and encourage your teams and customers to drop in donations of the items we need?
  • Financial Donations can be made through our JustGiving Page
If you would like to partner with us on our Summer Bag appeal and help us reach our objective of reaching at least 150 families, please get in touch with our Engagement team via marketing@ccp.org.uk.