YMCA North Staffordshire has been serving communities across Stoke on Trent and North Staffordshire from its youth campus since 1976.

Communities are at the heart of everything it does and every year it has a footfall of around 90,000 people accessing services including accommodation, sports, youth clubs, family work, training, education health and wellbeing activities.

Activities over the past 12 months have included hosting a community meal with partner organisations to around 150 people every month and delivering weekly youth clubs in five locations across the city providing activities, safe spaces and new opportunities for children and young people.

It has worked with communities through its volunteering programme to help with a variety of projects across the city including a rubbish pick up around Westport Lake, helping at the Shelton allotments and cooking food and gifting it to people in partnership with FEASTED.

YMCA North Staffs has organised and delivered the summer SPACE programme launch in Hanley, Tunstall and Longton providing activities with partners to hundreds of children, provided hampers to more than 500 families during the Christmas period and hosted a weekly space for Sanctus to work from, delivering food, ESOL and guidance to people from the refugee and asylum community.

It has also supported more than 100 families every week through its Pantry – providing food, community and a friendly welcome.

Every night of the year YMCA North Staffs provides a home and shelter to 210 young people aged 16 to 24, reducing the risks of those young people becoming homeless .

In addition it helps its friends and partners across the city wherever it can, gifting the use of a minibus so more children and young people can benefit from wider experiences, offering the YMCA as a safe space to meet, providing support to community groups and working in partnership wherever possible.

Nicky Twemlow, Partnerships and Community Director of YMCA North Staffs, said: “Supporting our city to become the best it can be is a key priority for YMCA North Staffordshire and we work tirelessly to support the strategic ambitions for our communities and the people we serve.

“We play a key role in the work of the Collaborative Network, working with around 30 plus partner agencies to deliver a collective impact. We also helped to launch Made in Stoke, connecting diaspora communities back to the city to gift their time, talent and treasure to benefit others.

“Over the past six years we have won YMCA of the Year twice and we continually challenge the negative perceptions surrounding our city, championing the great work that we all do and the brilliant kind people in our city whenever we can.

“We know that none of us can do this alone and we achieve our greatest impact when we work with others. “

YMCA North Staffs has entered the Business in the Community category of the Staffordshire University Business Awards.