‘Delightful’ offenders revamp Romford charity
Hornchurch charity Add Up has redone their offices because they thought it was "unwelcoming " and "not friendly enough". Sheila Keeling and Lyndsay Marsh in their new office. - Credit: Archant
A “delightful bunch” of offenders renovated the offices of a children’s charity as part of a community reparation project.
Those at Add+Up, a Hornchurch-based charity for children with attention deficit disorders, praised the handy convicts that cheered up the building.
Staff at the Billet Lane centre were very happy with the outcome said the revamped offices provide a more “warm and welcoming” centre for families to visit.
Not only was the inside of the building redecorated, but the team also worked on the outside, removing overgrown shrubs and tidying it up.
The development manager of Add+Up, Sheila Keeling, said that she would like to thank the team from Community Payback who did the work.
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She said: “They were polite, courteous, funny and a delightful bunch of people to have around for the last weeks.”
Sheila praised Community Payback and said that it was just a shame that some people couldn’t “see beyond the orange jackets” that the team had to wear as part of the project.
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“Everyone makes mistakes and everyone should have the opportunity to make amends for theirs,” she said. “I would like to think that someone would give our young people a chance without judging them.”
The redecoration has made an “enormous” difference to the charity, she said.
“Hopefully it also gave the Community Payback team a chance to learn from these experiences and gain new skills that will hopefully lead them down a new path and help reduce the risk of re-offending,” she said.
The Ford Motor Company also offered some funding for the charity to purchase office equipment to “complete the job”.
Add+Up’s work in Havering, Barking and Dagenham raises awareness of the attention disorders and provides support for those who need it.
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