PURPLE Elephant, the organisers of Frome Children’s Festival and the Toy Library, reflects on its successes as its offer has pivoted from established group-play to supporting the most vulnerable families in the area.
“As Easter approached last year we already knew with sinking hearts that our school holiday activities and free summer Frome Children’s Festival would be cancelled” explains director, Sue Willis. “It became clear there would be no regular Toy Library lending, stay-and-play sessions or school holiday open activities. We took a deep breath and responded to Covid-19 with new projects aimed at keeping families safe and supported.”
In the first lockdown this tiny company compiled and created over 1,000 free craft, cooking and sports activity packs, provided a series of small scale, super-safe sport, craft and science holiday activities and rounded off the year by giving 100 Christmas presents to vulnerable families in partnership with Kids Out, as well as holding small scale socially-distanced Christmas parties, with free meals provided by Fair Frome.
2021’s response to school closures and the third lockdown has already seen the home-delivery of 170+ free educationally-focused packs specially prepared for those either with additional needs or for vulnerable children struggling to engage with home schooling.
The Toy Library now offers a free home-delivery service, allowing families to safely borrow games brought to the door and the focus on young families also saw the launch of Small Steps, a new early-years support service providing parenting advice for pre-school children.
Purple Elephant has also launched a new online befriending service which matches experienced, vetted volunteers with vulnerable children for a weekly Zoom chat.
Sue Willis tells Frome Times, “The year has presented many challenges but also brought unexpected rewards such as recruiting several new, lovely volunteers and supporting over 30 teenage volunteers to develop event management skills and complete units for their Duke of Edinburgh awards.”
None of this would have been possible without the support of volunteers, generous local donations, partnership working with other organisations and grants and sponsorship including those from The National Lottery, Somerset Community Foundation, Live West, Frome Lions, Carnival and Rotary clubs, Somerset County Council, Frome Town Council, the Somerset Fund, Pat Newman Memorial Trust, Selwood Housing Association, SASP, Magic Little Grants (Postcode Lottery), Wessex Water, Lettings R Us, Storagebase, College of Bowen Studies, TSL, Western Airducts, Cox and Cox, Dennis Maps and Sam Ferris Associates. All have Purple Elephants heartfelt thanks.
The organisation looks forward to continuing to support local families throughout 2021 and to restarting group activities when it is safe to do; if you are a professional supporting a Frome-area family, or a family who needs support, get in touch.
For more information about or to sponsor or support Purple Elephant, contact sue@fromechildrensfestival.org or visit www.frome childrensfestival.org.
