Group in special sporting event
A West Lothian community support group entered a team in the Recovery Olympics in Stirling last weekend.
1st Step in Linlithgow are a community organisation and social enterprise who run a number of different projects and try to get their service users out in the community as much as possible.
The Recovery Olympics offered the perfect opportunity and the team set off to Stirling for the day where they were the proud winners of the kids’ race, sack race and wheelbarrow race.
Unfortunately this was not enough to get them near the winner’s table and they had to be content with a prize for the ‘most cooperative team.’
1st Step’s development manager, Maria Throp, said: “The team were all buzzing when they came back and it was a really worthwhile day - exercise is good for mental health. We are always saying that people don’t recover in a vacuum so recovering in society is very important and these types of events are a massive help.”
1st Step have a wide range of projects for their users to get involved with, like 1st Step Bikes and 1st Step Gardening Project and their own Community Cafe.
Also on offer are welfare rights drop-in sessions and IT training in conjunction with West Lothian Council, and they work with authorities like NHS and Social Work to bring in referalls.
However, most important is the help they get from the general public.
Maria explained: “A lot of folk want to help us. Addiction is hard to define and everyone knows someone who drinks too much so we get a lot of help from the pubic.
“Not all our volunteers are in recovery and we have a wide range of friendships that we like to help out too. We donate bikes from the bike project to West Lothian Refugee Project and other children’s charities. We are a community group run by a mixture of people, many of whom have been affected by addiction. We’re all about getting people together to provide a positive environment, where they can support each other and work together, and make a real difference.”
Big Lottery Funding the group received has allowed them to transform their operation in recent times. Before then they only opened for a few half days every week but now their premises at St Ninian’s Church, Linlithgow are open five days a week.
Their gardening operation allows them to show their service users how to grow their own food and then they supply their cafe with fresh vegetables and fruit. One week’s harvests include strawberries, blackcurrants, raspberries, rhubarb, broad beans, chard and salad.
1st Step Bikes is their social enterprise operation which Maria described as using the “muscle of business to do good.” They are donated bikes by the public and then sell them on at low cost within the community. The Community Cafe is open one day per week on a Tuesday but is a great resource for people struggling financially in West Lothian, and anyone is invited to attend. Aldi and Lidl donate food that is available to take away for anyone struggling to get by that week. For details on the group contact firststepdevelopment@gmail.com or visit in person at Longcroft Hall in Linlithgow.
These types of event are a massive help