CREDITON young people have been making Christmas gifts with professional artists.

Significant Seams, Crediton Town Council Youth Club, and The Turning Tides Project collaborated to deliver a Festive Feast and workshop for teens on Tuesday, December 20.

A participant said, “I thought it was very cool and I like the gifts!” and shared that they learned that “You can make your own fabric.”

Local artist Catherine West designed a number of activities for the young people - involving felt making, applique, sewing, and painting. (The project didn’t provide further details as it didn’t want to spoil the surprise where young people had made Christmas gifts!)

A parent said: “Thanks so much for having them and the amazing food parcels, I love the recipe jars! The kids were excited to unpack everything and show me what they’d made.” 

The Turning Tides Project identified three recipes with primarily dry ingredients, which could be layered prettily in a glass jar.

They assembled these and attached an envelope with the recipe as part of each family’s festive parcel.

The collaboration now has a number of these for sale to help raise funds for future youth programmes in Crediton.

The national Holiday Activity and Food Scheme is funded for just one more year, and grant awards are increasingly being made based on value for money criteria, after priority areas are identified based on need. In practice, this means groups delivering the programme need to secure match funding.

Significant Seams, Turning Tides, and The Crediton Youth Club imagined their partnership would help increase reach to the most vulnerable families in the area, using their combined relationships, mailing lists, and social media followings.

However, the programme booked 27 young people for the 20 originally allocated places before any of the partners publicly announced the new programme.

Given the quick response to the eventbrite booking system going live, the partners conferred about their capacity and increased the number of places available.

Devon County Council Holiday Activity and Food Programme enabled free spaces for 11-16 year olds entitled to Free School Meals, and Crediton Town Council enabled a number of additional spaces at half price for young people whose families are near to, but above the Free School meals eligibility line. Whilst places were also available on a fee paying basis, priority was given based on need.

The quick filling of spaces is a worrying sign of the local impact of the national cost of living crisis.

A December 2020 national report about ‘measuring and mitigating child hunger’ by the Social Market Foundation found that Mid Devon youth have the seventh highest food insecurity in the country despite not appearing on the indices of highest need.

The study indicates 23 per cent of Mid Devon young people have food insecurity. North Devon is placed ninth.

The pandemic response provided particular insight into areas where employment, cost of living and other social and economic changes have high impact.

More widely recognised areas of poverty in Devon did not make the list of 20 local authorities with the highest food insecurity nationally.

Donations are gratefully received for the Youth Programme at: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=4EVCMYU7M8TKY .