The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
More praise for great young people
As promised last week, further stories of Rotary Young Citizens award winners. Sixteen-year-old Poppy McGhee suffers from epilepsy. She started playing the violin aged five and passed Grade 8 – the top musical examination – with distinction two weeks after her eighth birthday.
Aged seven, after seeing a performance by blind and autistic pianist Derek Paravacini, she decided to use her talents to raise money for The Amber Trust. Poppy has taken part in workshops run by the trust helping to provide music therapy to blind, partially sighted and autistic children. She mentors younger musicians. Professor Adam Ockelford, who founded The Amber Trust, said: “I first met Poppy when she was only eight years old.
She came up to me at the end of a concert and said: ‘I want to raise money for The Amber Trust.’ She started with a concert that year and every year since raising money for
us. Having now raised several thousand pounds Poppy really is our golden fundraiser.”
Alfie Dean, 14, set up The Babbacombe Pantry outside
his home. He used a shelf from his bedroom to give elderly and vulnerable people chance to collect essential items during lockdown.
Alfie set up a GoFundMe page to help keep the pantry well-stocked. He said: “The pantry was relied on by so many people. When we started delivering food parcels as well, I noticed that people of all ages were using it. Lockdown was causing people to struggle in so many different ways, be that financial or social.” The teenager also launched a Christmas appeal collecting gifts and raising funds to provide 400 Christmas stockings to families in need. This year he organised an Easter egg hunt and delivered more than 200 donated Easter eggs to children.
Nineteen-year-old Lanai Collis-Phillips has been volunteering for over five years. At Volunteering Matters she is involved in Women Against Sexual Exploitation and Violence Speak Up (WASSUP), raising awareness of domestic abuse, child abuse and sexual violence. She has helped deliver “Gang Grooming” workshops to more than 1,500 schoolchildren in Suffolk and was part of the presenting team for Crucial Crew showing children how to protect themselves and others. Lanai is the first young person in Suffolk to become a representative on the local safeguarding board. She is an #iwill UK ambassador for Youth Social Action and has chaired a number of high level #iwill campaign meetings in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Ipswich Wolsey Rotary nominated Lanai for the Young Citizen Award after mentoring her when she was sponsored by the Suffolk Police and Crime Commissioner to attend the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA).
What inspirational young people.