Boys dig in to help Lewis
FUND SET UP TO PAY TEEN’S TRAVEL EXPENSES TO PURSUE DREAM CAREER AT COLLEGE
A Sunderland teenager’s career dream has moved a step closer with help from a city fund.
Lewis Hodgson, 17, dreamed of opening his own business in tree surgery, but travelling costs were making it impossible.
The weekly expenses for the four-hour trip from Pennywell to East Durham College, in Durham City, were a financial burden on Lewis and his mother.
Lewis said: “Spending all my money on bus fares meant I had nothing to spend on food during the day.”
The burden was pushing Lewis into quitting his dream course and looking at other career options, until one of his former teachers stepped in.
Academy 360’s Colin Kinvig heard about the teenager’s financial problems and contacted the Sunderland Boys Fund to grant a fund for Lewis’s daily trip to his course at the college’s Houghall campus.
Colin said: “I put a bid in for Lewis to the Sunderland Boys Fund to help him and his mam out to cover his bus fares every month.”
The Sunderland Boys Fund was established to provide financial help to young people under 25 to support them into work, such as contributions towards travel costs and clothing for job interviews.
Ian Thompson, chairman of the Sunderland Boys Fund, said: “The trustees were delighted to support Lewis. His determination, through personal challenges, to achieve his dream of employment is commendable and indicated to the trustees that his application was a very worthwhile one.”
Lewis has now set his sightsonacareerasatreesurgeon in Australia or Canada.