Youth cafe members have it covered with their fantastic face mask designs
Drymen Youth Cafe members have been keeping active after the coronavirus pandemic ended their weekly meetings in the village hall.
Around 50 young people from the villages of Drymen, Croftamie and Buchanan regularly gather on Friday nights and to keep in touch, the youth cafe committee has continued to meet via Zoom, arranging a few activities which can be done remotely.
Last summer - after receiving a successful grant from Youth Scotland - every member was given gardening pots, compost and seeds with amazing flowers and vegetables grown.
For many years, the cafe has given a small Christmas gift to people in the local villages - including supporters, the sick and the elderly known to the cafe. Before the festive season, homemade cards were created by individuals and the committee decided to run a competition for the young people to design a face mask; the two winning entries were by Harry, who designed a map of Drymen landmarks and Grace, who designed a flower with the words“stay Safe”included.
The masks were printed by a local company The Unique Company and funded by a grant received from Stirling Council’s Community Grants Scheme and the cafe members are grateful to both.
A cafe spokesperson said:“the masks were safely delivered in December by the young people and their parents and we had some lovely cards saying‘thank you for your kindness’and‘thank you for the very thoughtful gift of the masks’.
“Another one said‘as this is the first year that we have been unable to get out and about, we particularly appreciate your support and thoughts’.”
Some extra masks are still available for sale from The Village Hub in Drymen priced at £5.
The cafe continues to find new ways of meeting and engaging their members with a recent online Kahoot quiz being a big hit and have received fantastic support from Youth Scotland with funding, Covid guidelines and activity ideas.
“We’re looking forward to the time when we can meet together again on Friday evenings in the village hall,”added the spokesperson.