The Tim Lamb Children's Centre

A local North East organisation called Pathways 4 All was established in 2010 in response to a need for recreational opportunities for children and teenagers with disabilities.
Previously, Lynn McManus, the creator of our nonprofit organisation, ran a once-weekly youth programme for kids with special needs within a neighbourhood soft play area.
This motivated Lynn to start looking for a more permanent location, and she did this by founding the nonprofit Pathways 4 All, whose main goal is to create a specialised facility for kids with special needs.
When the charity earned 60,000 in the National Lottery's Jubilee People's Millions Award in 2011, that was our first major victory.
We were able to buy play and sensory equipment for our garden area thanks to this amazing sum of money.
The play and sensory equipment arrived once the garden space had been cleared and the earth prepared, and our garden began to take shape.
While working on our garden project, we focused on our deteriorating building, which required entire renovation, including new windows, rewiring, a new heating system, roof repairs, sanitary improvements, and a new entrance.
This was a significant task for a small charity that was still in its infancy, but Lynn and the board were adamant about bringing this ancient building back to life and provide desperately needed facilities for neighbourhood impaired children.
We received further good fortune when Channel 5 chose us for their television programme Operation Homefront.
They brought in a construction team made up of former service members, whose goal was to renovate our building in a matter of days.
When we finally opened the doors to our eagerly awaited children's centre in the fall of 2012, our dream became a reality.
We decided to rename the Center the Tim Lamb Centre in Tim's honour because he tragically passed away before the renovations were finished.
It became clear that more floor space was required as demand for the Tim Lamb Centre grew.
The Center reopened in 2017 with the David Marley Extension, which included a brand-new kitchen and café next to the soft play area, after a three-month renovation.
In 2018, we moved our sensory room into a bigger location and added a gorgeous suspended fibre optic ceiling, a new heated water bed, and other new amenities.
Then, at the end of 2019, we purchased a second room that was annexed to our building but was formerly the main country park office and started the process of converting it into a useful social area for our short-term activity programmes.
We were able to add a second room by dividing the back of the trampoline hall, and we also added a small kitchen space next to it with cabinetry that the Howdens Benton Branch kindly contributed.
We are very appreciative of the large grant awards from The Sun 50 Fund, The Morrisons Foundation, The Clothworkers Foundation, Postcode Neighbourhood Trust funded by the Peoples Postcode Lottery, and the Bernard Sunley Foundation that allowed us to buy the expensive items from our original wish list.