Frome social club wins Discovery grant

A social club in Frome, for young adults with additional needs, has won a grant from the Discovery Community Fund.  

The fund allocates grants of £500-50,000 to groups for a range of activities to enable people with additional needs to live fulfilling lives in their community.

Pod Plus opened two years ago and this grant means that the club can now offer a wider variety of activities. During the last six months, many of the children from Pod Youth Club have moved across to Pod Plus and the group now has up to 16 young people coming every week. 

Charity manager, Sue Paxton says, “We found that at the age of 18, our youth club members were leaving and becoming isolated because they didn’t have a social group to go to and socialise with people their own age; this is why we set up Pod Plus in 2017.”

The Pod members choose the activities they would like to do and Zumba is popular as well as casino nights with black tie dressing up, roulette tables, prizes and mocktails. 

The group which is led by support staff, like to take part in community events and they recently enjoyed apple juicing at a nearby farm. They collected fallen apples and put them in the juicer and took a bottle home to drink.

If you are interested in finding out more about the group, please visit info@thepodcharity.org.uk or telephone 07709 231536. The Discovery Community Fund opened for the first time in early 2019 and has already supported nine community projects in Somerset.