The Rt Hon Brandon Lewis CBE MP Chooses Sunbeams Play for £1k Donation

The Rt Hon Brandon Lewis CBE MP for Great Yarmouth, has nominated Sunbeams Play – a charity offering a haven for children and young people with Autism, to receive £1,000 donated by the trade body bacta, which represents seaside arcades, piers and related attractions.

 

Sunbeams Play is registered to care for children and young people aged 5 to 25 – normally open throughout the year. Through play, creative activities and key working, children and young people are supported to develop the skills needed to communicate effectively and socialise, developing friendships and an understanding of other’s needs, views, feelings and emotions.

In lockdown, Sunbeams has been creating goodie bags to keep the young people entertained while the centre is closed. The goodie bags were made up ‘safely’ and differentiated to suit age and ability for every child/young person. The money donated by bacta will be used to replenish resources and carry out further bag drops.

“The management team at Sunbeams would like to say a massive thank you to bacta for their kind donation of £1,000. This will enable us to provide all of our children and young people with further sensory and activity bags while in lockdown,” says Sue Carr, Deputy Manager

Bacta launched its Siding With the Seaside (#sidingwiththeseaside) campaign last year in order to support the seaside communities served by their members and to highlight the lack of government investment that threatens the precious heritage in many seaside towns.

Bacta CEO John White says, “The situation was already serious for many seaside towns whose communities have suffered through lack of employment and local investment. However, when we went into lockdown just before the Easter holidays, the position became far more serious as local businesses were forced to shut and the seasonal trade, which is so vital, was lost. Our members made a total of £23,000 available to give to seaside charities via the MPs who we have got to know through our seaside campaigning work and who are best placed to know who would benefit most.”

ENDS

Editor information:

About bacta:

Bacta represents the owners and operators of seaside amusement arcades, over-18 amusement centres, and the companies that hire machines to pubs, clubs, bowling alleys, bingo halls and similar venues. It also represents the manufacturers and distributors of all types of amusement equipment. This can range from children’s rides, to jukeboxes, fruit machines in pubs and clubs, crane grabbers, penny falls, tuppeny nudgers, test your strength machines, videos, pool tables and gaming machines www.bacta.org.uk

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