Forty-eight young Salvation Army volunteers will be hard at work running weeks of fun, sports and games for children who may not otherwise get a holiday this year.

The volunteers will be organising swimming, football, and table tennis matches, going on trips, doing crafts and playing board games with the children. They will also be encouraging the children to learn about environmental issues.

The volunteers work hard at building up the children's self-esteem, and getting them to value themselves as well as the world around them.

The children have been referred to The Salvation Army by social services and by Salvation Army churches. Many of them come from difficult family backgrounds.

Each group of children will get a week's holiday; but the volunteers will be running three separate holidays, meaning three weeks of work for them!

Organiser Captain Denise Cooper, the Salvation Army Children's Officer for the region, said: "Many of these children won't get a proper holiday this year, because of their family situation, so we'll be packing as much into the holidays as we can.

"The children really appreciate the holiday; it's a time when they can spend time with adults, getting to know them, and have fun with them. It is very much about relationship building alongside the programme.

"But the volunteers get a lot from the holiday as well; many come to appreciate their own families much more, when they see how difficult things have been for some children."




[Re-printed in Christian Today with the kind permission of The Salvation Army]