Youth With A Future

YWAF Annual General Meeting takes place on Wednesday 24 April at 7pm at The Well Inn, Cannards Grave, Shepton Mallet (BA4 4LY). Elizabeth and Andrew Alden will be speaking about their community garden project for vulnerable young adults in Frome, which recently received funding from YWAF. All welcome.

A big THANK YOU to Shepton Mallet Community Bookshop for their kind donation of £500 to purchase Christmas gift cards for all young residents of YMCA supported housing schemes.

Special thanks to the Annett Charitable Trust for their £500 grant and to the Hasluck Charitable Trust for their grant of £2000!

A big thank you to everyone who came along to our fund-raising pub quiz at The Well Inn on 29 January 2023 - we raised a whopping £500 and had a lot of fun!

All are welcome to come along to our Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 26 April at 7pm at The Well Inn, Cannards Grave Road, Shepton Mallet. Our speaker will be our trustee Jane Copestake who will be talking about the current situation with homeless young people in the Mendip area and how the YMCA helps them.

Download the AGM report for 2022

Special thanks to St Peter & St Paul's church, Shepton Mallet for their recent donation of £1,000 and Shepton Mallet Community Bookshop for donating £500 towards our Christmas gift cards to YMCA residents.

We are grateful to the Fairfield Charitable Trust for their very kind grant to us of £3,000!

A MASSIVE thank you to Jackie Garbett and her amazing team of volunteers who worked hard at Glastonbury Festival in June and bagged us a fantastic £4,350 for their efforts. Every single penny goes to support young people in Mendip! Thank you guys!

Thanks to those who attended our AGM on 25th April 2022 and to Cassie Morris from local Frome organisation Edventure who talked about their work with 18-30 year olds.

Download the minutes

Download the AGM report

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who came with teams for our annual Pub Quiz on 30th January at The Well Inn. We raised £381 and had a great evening. Huge thanks to the staff at The Well who made us very welcome. Next one is Sunday 29 January 2023 - a date for your diary!

As our usual fund-raising activities have been curtailed by the pandemic, we would like to say a huge thank you to:

The Mabel Cooper Charitable Trust for their £1200 grant

The Somerset Community Foundation Glastonbury Solidarity Fund for their £1000 grant

The Glastonbury & Street Lions Club for their £100 donation

St Peter & St Paul's church, Shepton Mallet for their £1000 donation

We are holding our AGM on Monday 13th September at 7.30pm at the Horseshoe pub in Bowlish, Shepton Mallet. All are very welcome!

We’re excited to announce that we have received £2,000 grant funding from KFC Foundation UK. YWAF was selected amongst various local organisations across KFC restaurant communities in the UK, with the aim of empowering young people to fulfil their potential. Thank you to the KFC Foundation for recognising the work we do to improve the lives of young people in Mendip.

A massive thank you to those who donated to our Christmas 2020 appeal which raised £804

YWAF Annual General Meeting takes place virtually on Zoom on Monday 12th October at 7.30pm. If you would like to join us please email us - [email protected] - and we will let you have a Zoom invitation and agenda.

You are warmly invited to attend YWAF's Annual General Meeting on Monday 27 April at 7.30pm at the Church Rooms, Peter Street, Shepton Mallet. BA4 5BL. YMCA Mendip's supported housing projects.

Update: this has been postponed from 27th April due to the coronavirus outbreak. We are not sure when we will be able to hold the meeting but will circulate details as soon as we can.

A big thank you to everyone who donated to our Christmas Appeal - we received £229 towards our Christmas gift cards for the residents of YMCA Mendip's supported housing projects.

Massive thanks for the M&S Store in Clark's Village at Street for fund-raising for YWAF as their charity of the year. Their staff and volunteers have raised a whopping £913 and we are hugely grateful to them for their efforts!

Sound of Music Sing-along - what a fun evening we had on 19th October - thanks to those who came in fine voice and raised £503.76!

A MASSIVE thank you to Jackie Garbett and her team of volunteers who worked so hard at the Glastonbury Festival this year on our behalf. We received a whopping £4,450 for their hard work!

We would like to thank the Somerset Croston Trust for the grant of £2,000 received in July.

Special thanks to everyone who came and joined our pub quiz on 27th January. We raised £202.70. Congratulations to the winning team - Shepton Sings community choir!

YWAF is proud to announce that we gave away £7,132 to 8 recipients as part of our 2018 Big Give Away.

We would like to thank everyone who donated to our 2018 Christmas appeal - we raised £389.

A massive thank you to everyone who supported our film gala night for the Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald film on 17th November. A special thanks to Wells Film Centre for hosting us. We raised a wonderful £647.50! For photos of the amazing costumes, please see our YWAF Somerset Facebook page!

This year, to celebrate the fact that we have given away over £100,000 since our formation in 2003, we are having the 2018 Big Give Away and plan to give away £10,000 in grants during the year to community groups working with young people aged 16-25 living in the Mendip area. We would like to encourage them to apply for their share of the funds. Maximum bid would be up to £2,000. This grant could be used to start up a new project, purchase resources or equipment, help pay expenses for staff, go towards a trip or activity that enhances life chances/builds self-esteem, etc. The remaining two deadlines are 31 August and 30 November. Please see our Grants page for more information.

A big thank you to those who supported us from Shepton Mallet at the Collett Festival on 9th June. We made a total of £195.

Minutes for 2018 AGM now available.

Download minutes

All are welcome to the YWAF Annual General Meeting on Monday 23 April from 7.30-9.00pm at the church rooms, Peter Street, Shepton Mallet. BA4 5BL. Main Speaker is Karen Deverell, Chief Executive of YMCA Mendip.

Facebook event

YWAF will be holding a quiz night on Sunday 28th January 2018 from 7pm onwards at the Horseshoe pub in Bowlish, Shepton Mallet. There will be room for 7 teams of 6 people at £2.50 per head – if you would like to enter a team please book early by emailing [email protected] or call 07504758263.

YWAF will have a fund-raising stall at the Shepton Mallet Sunday Market on 19th November from 10.00am to 3.30pm. Please do come and say hello and help us raise funds to purchase essential items for 16-25 year olds in Mendip who have been homeless and are moving into their first tenancies.

Come and see us on Saturday 4th November at the Christmas craft fair at St Peter & St Paul's parish church, Shepton Mallet from 10.20 - 12 noon. We will be selling hot chocolate!

Massive thank you to Jackie Garbett and her team at Glastonbury Festival who raised a massive £2,600 for YWAF!

Special thanks to a lovely group of young people from the National Citizenship Service who did a number of fund-raising activities for us in July and August and raised £462.44. They are all stars and we are really grateful to them!

A fantastic evening was held at Wells Film Centre on 11th June for the film premiere of Wonder Woman. We raised £486 - thanks to Wells Film Centre for hosting us and to all who supported us!

Thanks to those who supported us at Collett Day in Shepton Mallet in June - we raised £271.

YWAF AGM - Monday 24 April at 7.30pm at the church rooms, Peter Street, Shepton Mallet. BA4 5BL. Our speaker will be Dave Bingham team leader at Mendip YMCA who oversees the project housing five young Eritrean refugees from the jungle camp at Calais.

View 2016 AGM

A special thank you to the Bridging Fund Charitable Trust for their kind grant of £2,500 to pay for essential items for homeless young people when they move into tenancies with Mendip YMCA, private or social housing. We are really grateful!

Thanks to everyone who came to our pub quiz on 29th January....we made £271.57! We were overwhelmed by the response and could not fit another person into the George pub at Croscombe! Thanks to the George for hosting the event. They have invited us to do another one, so watch this space!

Special thanks to all the helpers and team who worked at Glastonbury Festival back in June - we have had a whopping £4,400 from the Festival organisers! Thank you so much!

Our sincere thanks to Street Parish Council who have awarded us a grant of £1,600 to support young homeless people in Street with moving-in grants for new tenancies

We warmly invite everyone to join us for our AGM on Monday 18th April 2016 at 7.30pm at the Church Rooms in Peter Street, Shepton Mallet, Somerset, BA4 5BL.

AGM Report 2015.

Many thanks to everyone who donated to our YWAF Christmas appeal which this year raised £255.

Special thanks to the Wells Lions Club who donated £500 to YWAF from fund-raising at the Wells Moat Boat Race in August, and also to the Wells Methodist Church 'Bright Hour' group for their £50 donation.

Many thanks to those of you who supported YWAF by donating DVDs and books and buying things from our stall at Collett Day on 3th June. We raised a massive £318 - the best yet!

YWAF trustees warmly invite members of the public to attend the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Monday 13 April from 7.30pm at the Church Rooms in Peter Street, Shepton Mallet to hear about the work of the charity. The AGM guest speaker will be Mark Willcox, the Youth & Community Development Manager for Mendip YMCA, who will be outlining the youth work provision across the Mendip area.

Hot off the press: YWAF has been nominated to be the recipients of the funds raised at the Wells Moat Boat Race on August Bank Holiday.

Rt. Rev Peter Hancock, the new Bishop of Bath & Wells, has agreed to become a Patron of YWAF.

YWAF Christmas Appeal.

AGM Report 2013.

From Mendip YMCA:

"Mendip YMCA would like to take this opportunity to thank YWAF for the kind donation of £150 for the music system.

"This is a great help towards our new Youth Club in Shepton Mallet to encourage young people to come along and enjoy the club."

AGM Report 2012.

New web site launched - we hope you like it!

AGM Report 2011.

AGM Report 2010.

AGM Report 2009.