Leeds Action Projects
Action Bound
Each month we take young carers, and children who have siblings with disabilities, out for a well deserved Sunday of fun! Come join us for canoeing, tobogganing, theme parks and many more great action packed day trips.
Bridge the Gap
Fancy spending an hour with someone older and wiser and brightening up their day? Come on bridge the gap and make the residents of a local care home very happy people. We go to the care home for an hour every Thursday in term time and volunteers are free to sign up whenever they want to come. We spend the first part playing bingo, followed by some dominos/card games and chatting. Be warned their are some very crafty bingo players and cheeky individuals!
Christmas Present Project
Last year the Christmas present project was a huge success raising lots of charity money to pay for Christmas presents for some of the children that our projects help. Help us fundraise, buy and wrap presents and deliver them to the children involved dressed as christmas elves!
Easter & Summer Holidays
Struggling to find something useful to do over your holidays? Well why not make a difference and give to children from all sorts of backgrounds the chance to have five days of holiday fun! We need a team of volunteers to get involved in all aspects of running a residential project; from helping to plan meals, organising the activities and looking after the children... there is a role for everyone! We hold training sessions so you’ll have plenty of support! It’s a fantastic experience and a really good way to make great friends with other volunteers whilst making a real difference to some children’s lives.
Green Fingers
Time to get green with some down-to-earth gardening. Green Fingers has its very own allotment, and aims to keep it looking good throughout the year, by using carpentry, construction, and traditional gardening methods. This benefits all of the Action projects, who use the site for barbecues, socials and educational purposes. We strive to promote outdoor activities, healthy eating, and environmental awareness.
Green Streets
Green Streets is a ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ project, aiming to limit the environmental impact of student changeover on the environment. We coordinate with all the student halls and over 8,000 homes in the local community, to take their unwanted goods to homeless shelters, hostels and refugee centers. We hold monthly free shops at the union, and need as many volunteers as possible to help sort and distribute items as well as run our free shops. With volunteers getting first dibs on what’s there, why not come and help out on this multi-award winning project?
Hawksworth Project
During these five-day activity weeks run throughout some school holidays e.g February half-term, we run various workshops, involving: drama, sport, arts and crafts, and games. It is held at the Hawksworth Wood Children's Centre, and takes place both indoors and outdoors.
Hyde Park 5-8s
Fancy some arts and crafts fun with some 5-8 year old crafty little scamps? Well join us for a few hours while we play games and make art with primary school children. Great if you want to gain some valuable experience for a career working with young children too!
Interaction
Watch this space for events where we really mix things up! In Interaction, projects join forces to mix volunteers and children and young people from many different proejcts to run events bigger and better than we could do alone. It's a great way to let the people we help to get the opportunity to socialise with each other. It also gives volunteers a taster of what different projects are like.
Little London Crazy Club
Get another dose of arts, crafts and mischief with some bigger kids at Little London primary school. After school, for a few hours a week, we play games, have fun, and make some brilliant artistic creations.
Older People's Tea Party
Tea Party Anyone? The Older People’s Tea Party, is an eagerly anticipated event that happens just once a year and sees around 250 older people descend upon the union for an afternoon of tea, cake and entertainment. It’s a great way to improve relations between students and older people from the surrounding community and great fun is had by all. We would appreciate any help towards food preparation, serving food and drink on the day and the all important clear up afterwards. Sign up for this event and you won’t regret it!
Outdoor Mix
How does a weekend away supporting young people sound? Give some urbanites a chance to do some outdoor activities in the glorious English countryside. Get ready for cycling, climbing, caving, archery and chatting round the campfire. Go on, awe them with your wisdom, story-telling, and marshmallow-toasting skills!
Reach
We take young people aged 12-16 who have learning difficulties away for the weekend. Take them on Safari, horse riding, canoeing and farm visits to name just a few of the exciting activities available. Volunteers will be the ‘guardian angel’ to one young person throughout the weekend, helping them at meal times and getting up and going to bed. You’ll be giving their parents a well earned rest too!
Referrals
Action has strong links with other groups doing community based volunteering. Having referral projects allows us to offer a wider range of opportunities to our volunteers. If you volunteer on a referral project you are still an Action member and as such you still receive full support, you can gain accreditation and come along to all of the socials. There are lots more opportunities for you to get involved in the community; tell us what you are interested in and we will try and find the right placement for you.
Saturday Stars
We take children with learning difficulties on exciting trips and activities! we've been to lots of places including swimming, visiting farms, science museum Magna and loads more days out all over west Yorkshire and the surrounding area By signing up to the project you will be making sure these children have a great time and ending up having alot of fun yourself!
Shopaholics
Fancy a bit of shopping on a Saturday? Each month we take local older people on shopping trips around Leeds. And with retro prints and vintage all the rage at the moment helping these people out could earn you some very stylish fashion tips!
Sunday Sport
If you’re into sport then this one’s for you. You chose the sport, we find the kids, then you show them how to play! This is a great way to show kids how being healthy and fit doesn’t have to be a chore.
Sunday Sunshine
Bring a little sunshine to the lives of some full of beans 6 to 12 year olds. We take children living in temporary housing out on fun day trips around Leeds. Be it to see a pantomime at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, listening to ghost stories at the Royal Armouries or whizzing around an ice-skating rink there is a whole lot of fun to be had! The children always really look forward to each project.
Venture
This is a new outdoor activities project for teenagers aged 12 to 15 who come from urban backgrounds in Leeds and are known to Social Services. We will be taking them with a group of volunteers away to places such as the Lake District and Peak District to pursue new outdoor challenges such as hiking, kayaking, rock climbing, mountain biking and more! The aim is to motivate young people to step outside their comfort zone, achieve new challenging goals and stretch their potential in the great outdoors.
Wacky Wednesdays
Wacky’s takes children aged 8-12 years who live locally out for activities around Leeds. This is an energetic and active project and we need volunteers who are prepared to think like a kid whilst keeping everything comfortably supervised.
Woodhouse Kids Club
Based in a community centre in Woodhouse, we provide an after school club for 5 to 9 year olds. It gives kids and volunteers a chance to get messy with some arts and crafts and silly with fun games. A great way to unwind after a hard days studying for students young and not so young!
