A Burnham-On-Sea youth club has re-opened its doors this week after being saved from permanent closure.
Local mental health support charity In Charley’s Memory re-opened The Zone Youth Club in Burnham’s BAY Centre on Tuesday (July 16th) after it shut earlier this year due to a lack of volunteers.
The relaunched club now meets every Tuesday for children aged between 11 and 15 from 3.30pm-5.30pm.
Dawn Carey, CEO of In Charley’s Memory, told Burnham-On-Sea.com she is “so excited” to reopen the club and adds it “just made so much sense”.
In Charley’s Memory was started after Burnham teenager Charley Marks sadly took his own life at 18 years old in 2014. The charity provides children and young people with mental health and wellbeing support.
The Zone, which was originally set up by the Somerset Rural Project, was attended by more than 30 children aged 10 to 11 and taken over by parent volunteers in 2016. It has now relaunched this week with over 60 children.
Dawn says: “Not every young person needs counselling. Some young people just need support. They need to offload to someone older than them, just to be able to let off steam.”
“We have 60 kids registered to come to the youth club – if that’s not the children in Burnham and Highbridge telling us how much they need this youth club then I don’t know what is.”
“The only difference is the youth club is actually going to be run by some of our counsellors, so if any of our kids do want to have a chat with somebody then there is someone on site that will be able to support them.”
She thanked several local businesses for their support, including Brit Chips and PJ Harris.
The club had previously been run successfully by Jayne Lilley and her son Brandon, but several of their appeals for helpers had not yielded enough support for the club to continue.
