On Saturday October 8th two of The Kind Bay strong volunteers (brothers) carried 75kg on a 12 mile route up and down the streets of Colwyn Bay and through Bayview Shopping Centre. The rickshaw style carrier carried a heavy bed testing dummy, and the boys will carry it on 5 circuits of the area.
The Kind Bay Initiative has grown so much over the last 3 years ,adapting and responding to the needs of the community. They help those that are homeless, vulnerable, isolated and lonely, and those suffering with their mental health. They provide a wide range of support including free hot meals, emergency clothing, mental health support, creative activities for mental health, Advocacy and signposting and we host drop ins with organisations such as MIND and NACRO (Housing ) and much more.
Over the 3 years they have helped food banks stay open by running community collections as well as Welsh Mountain Zoo and St Davids Hospice Shop, we run bike share projects and creative activities and excursions and have even planted the flowers in the bay one year!
In the last year The Kind Bay initiative have provided:
- 1783 free hot meals
- 1741 COOP Food Share items
- 238 items of emergency clothing
- 129 people helped with emotional support
- 143 people helped with mental health issues
- 94 people helped/signposted for housing issues
- 43 sessions of therapeutic support
- hosted monthly support drop ins
- creative sessions and excursions
- run a community bike share scheme
With the cost of living crisis we are becoming even busier, feeding on average 45 to 50 people a week, and now working from their own small building in the centre of Colwyn Bay they have a yearly rental overhead of £6k a year! However this provides them with a private area upstairs for therapy and support sessions, as well as housing emergency clothing and community collections and creative projects.
They are now seeing people coming to us for hot food that havent eaten a hot meal all week. We make sure our meals are nutritionally balanced but as we have a great team of volunteer bakers there is of course always cake to follow!
Due to the effect of Covid and the present economic situation we are finding more and more need for mental health support, and they are seeing huge transformations in those that access both the mental health and housing support which is provided by both their volunteer Jeannie who is a retired Psychologist and also at the monthly MIND drop in. They feel that they’re providing an essential service for suicide prevention, and our sessions also help to tackle social isolation and loneliness.