A night in the rain at the homeless youth club

Young members of the Cherry Tree Youth Club make the most of a meal of pizza and chips under a gazebo in the rain

Members of a youth club in Beverley, East Yorkshire, are having to meet outdoors in all weathers because, despite extensive efforts, staff have been unable to find a venue to host them. Volunteers and the young people they support invited the BBC to a typical session.

As rain pours down incessantly on a Monday evening, three volunteers struggle to put up a small gazebo in the corner of a park.

They stretch a banner across the front, which reads: "Cherry Tree Centre Youth Club".

A short time later, children huddle in the cold under canvas to share a warm meal of pizza and chips, while the volunteers hold on to the gazebo poles to prevent it blowing away.

They are here because, since the Covid pandemic, their club has been unable to find a home.

"Without us, where would they go?" asks organiser Jo Ramsay. "Do we give up, because everybody else has given up on them?"

'Hard choices'

Jo manages the Cherry Tree Community Centre, which set up the youth club in 2016 for children aged between nine and 18. It now engages with about 90 young people each week.

Initially, the club met in a small space downstairs in the centre, but in the wake of the pandemic, the room was converted into a food pantry to serve hundreds of hard-pressed families.

"We've had to make choices, hard choices, and the young people are suffering," Jo says.

Jo Ramsay says she just wants a warm, safe space for the young people

Members of the team have contacted more than a dozen local venues and organisations in search of a venue to host the club, but they have been unable to find a suitable home.

"I'd have anything," Jo says. "Just a place they can be safe and warm.

"A conventional Monday is me worrying all day about where we're going to go and what the weather's going to be like."

Cherry Tree has won a grant from the National Lottery to host youth sessions every night, but with no firm base, organisers are facing difficult conversations about where to take the children who benefit from their support.

Now, they fear they are facing a cold winter in the park.

"This is the start of the winter months, we're all wet through, our young people are wet through, and its just awful," Jo says.

Volunteers brave the rain to put up the gazebo and banner

Under the gazebo, one of the young people describes the staff as "like a second family".

The club has "helped us for years and gives us a place to go rather than being on the streets all night".

Another attendee says finding a permanent home would be "so much better because we're sat in the pouring rain in the local park".

When asked about their ideal space, they say: "Just somewhere warm to be honest."

Cherry Tree does have a long-term plan for the club, having recently won planning permission to create a small unit, made out of shipping containers, in the park.

However, the charity will need to raise about £90,000 to convert the containers into a safe space. It hopes the money will come through grants.

If successful, it will give the young people a home away from home.

Tony Henderson says the service is important to the wellbeing of young people

"We're going to create a safe environment that's going to be theirs," says Tony Henderson, the centre's trustee and treasurer. "They're going to have ownership of it and it's going to be their place to go to."

A youth club brings many benefits to a community, he adds.

"It's where you go when you're away from your parents in a supervised safe place.

"It's where you go to become a young adult, and it's so important to people's wellbeing and mental health."

Despite the plans, there are likely to be more wet and cold nights in the months ahead.

"We're not asking for a big posh place. We just want a safe warm space," says Jo.

"All we're trying to do is give the children, the young people, opportunities and chances."

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