As part of Jellybean’s 12 Days of Giving, I gave my time back to Leatherhead Youth Project (LYP), joining the first day of their Countdown to Christmas with a tree decorating competition!

This local charity is helping to transform the lives of so many young people across Leatherhead and Bookham with 21 exciting projects running throughout the year, providing a safe environment to make new friends and build relationships with the LYP community youth workers.

I came along to LYP’s relational hub ‘BFree’ which runs Monday – Friday and can see up to 70 people join a session. LYP has truly got into the festive spirit with a whole host of activities in the run-up to Christmas from cookie decorating and movie nights to creating hampers for the homeless and ultimately finishing with the very popular Christmas lunch.

To kickstart the festivities, I had the pleasure of joining for the Christmas tree decorating where the young people worked together in teams to create their masterpieces and transform the place into a winter wonderland! LYP is also home to the social enterprise AllSaints Coffee Shop where the trees are now proudly on display for members of the public to choose their favourite with the winning team will be announced at the Christmas lunch.

As a regular volunteer at LYP’s Girls Group, it was a fantastic opportunity to see another side to the charity and get to join in on the Christmas cheer.

To find out more about the amazing work this charity does please visit www.leatherheadyouthproject.com