A generous team of staff from Accrington and Rossendale College played their part in a DIY SOS style renovation project for local charity Nightsafe.
The 13-strong team from the Construction, Motor and Sports departments, volunteered their time after the Blackburn charity appealed for help in transforming a shell of a property into a bright modern home for six young people who have faced homelessness.
When complete, the six-bedroom property will provide a safe haven for six young people, with an additional bedroom being used by a rotation of Nightsafe staff members, who will be on-site at the property with its residents 24/7.
Steve Buckley, Head of Construction, Motor and Sports at the college, said: “After a struggle to find contractors which delayed the project, we were approached by Nightsafe to help support them and we were thrilled to be able to be part of making this happen”
“We all agreed that we wanted to do our bit to help this incredible charity and as staff have the option to take a health and wellbeing day, we each set a day aside to go in and get stuck into the work.”
This work included tiling, kitchen fitting, wallpaper hanging, plastering, joinery and generally moving projects along and making the house look more presentable.
Steve added: “We really did help the project move forward and felt proud that we had been able to make some difference to Nightsafe and the young people it helps who are homeless.”
Nicola Roscoe, Interim Operations Manager at Nightsafe, was hugely grateful for the support from the college team. “We could not achieve any of this without the amazing support from the people volunteering their time to support Nightsafe.”
She said: “The staff have been absolutely brilliant, and it was amazing to see how work progressed during the week they volunteered vital trades to us. One of the team is coming back soon to do some plastering for us. The kindness of these people just continues, and they are true ‘Nightsafe Heroes’
“There’s still some way to go to get the project completed, but we are in a better position now and we can’t thank them enough.”
Nicola is still on the lookout for tradespeople and other volunteers who can help complete work such as wallpapering and painting and general clean up jobs.
If you would like to give up your time to help finish the house, please contact Nicola at nicola.roscoe@nightsafe.org
