A new fundraising initiative is launching in Crewe, giving residents the chance to win big cash prizes, all while supporting local charities.

The Crewe Prize Draw has been created to raise vital funds for organisations making a real difference in our community.

Priced at £2 per ticket, this fortnightly Thursday evening draw gives away a MINIMUM PRIZE OF £1,500 to one lucky winner, all while boosting three local charities, including Hopes and Beams.

For over 35 years, Hopes and Beams has been providing a place where children, young people and adults with disabilities or additional needs can take part, learn new skills, build friendships and most importantly, feel they belong.

Based on Broad Street, this community hub offers inclusive activities, teaching, recreation and support for families, while helping people focus on ability rather than limitation.

The charity's work includes inclusive sport, learning support, social activities and programmes designed to build confidence and independence.

Joint Founder of Hopes and Beams, Iain Chalmers, has exclusively spoken to Crewe Nub News about the charity, dedicated to helping children and young adults with physical, sensory, or learning difficulties discover their potential:

For people who might not know Hopes and Beams, how would you describe what you do?

The charity has three or four different aims. First, it works with children and adults with physical, sensory, and learning disabilities, including autism.

We support them through sports and social activities and offer gymnastics up to World Championship level, alongside youth clubs and activity clubs.

​We also work closely with families on issues like behaviour, which is very important. We have a very uniform approach to behaviour here, and we are able to help and educate parents on different strategies with which they can assist with the behaviour of children.

​Additionally, we work with older members of the community. I think loneliness is a scourge of society, and there are so many older people who are very isolated and alone, especially after COVID-19.

We do clubs for individuals with Alzheimer's or the first stages of dementia, we have friendship groups with older women who want to do a bit of chair exercises and things like that.

Hopes & Beams is for individuals with disabilities, but also for older members of the community, bringing them together.

Where did the idea for Hopes and Beams come from and how has the charity grown over the years?

It started in 1990. I was a member of the Scottish National Squad for gymnastics, and I coached gymnastics up in Scotland. There I discovered I really knew nothing about coaching disability.

​I went on a course and got qualified for disability gymnastics. I felt it was such an important thing, working with disabled children and coaching them.

Because, from the health benefits, it not only built up strength and coordination, but also allowed them to succeed at things that their peers were able to do.

Normally they were isolate, they couldn't do sports because that was the situation all those years ago.

From there, I moved down here to Crewe, and after lots of looking at premises, my wife now, Jane, and I went into the old Springfield School.

Then we started different sports. We did football, boccia, athletics and art.

Around 13 years ago, we moved to Broad Street because the premises were falling apart down on Macon Way. Then we expanded what we do here.

We've gone from very small beginnings, where we used to transport equipment in a big lorry round different centres, to a place where we've now got a base which is very safe, welcoming, and we're able to extend our activities into all sorts of different social areas.

Can you share a story showing the true impact of Hopes & Beams?

Very often we have children who haven't been able to go out to different clubs or to do activities because they're just so uncertain.

We had one child who just screamed for about six months and refused to do anything, a little girl about six years old.

She'd just sit down and say, "I'm not doing that, I'm not doing this," and wanted to be in charge.

In many cases, the parents give up because it's too embarrassing or it's too difficult to take these children out.

But, we just collected her up and did activities. It took six months until that little girl decided that the screaming and the hitting just didn't work with us.

So she sort of then said, "Okay, all right," and she's joined in. Now she's doing competitions nationally in rhythmic gymnastics.

This is a tremendous change, and we're able to assist the parent and give advice on behaviour and support. This has now become a focus for that one individual's life.

What is the most rewarding part of your role at Hopes and Beams?

One of the issues I find is that if you have a child with special needs, you can have a situation where all the love and affection is thrown onto that child, and often it can lead to problems with siblings getting left out.

Or the opposite happens, the siblings have to look after the child, or the siblings can't do anything.

They can't do an activity themselves where the special needs child has to join in. So having a child with special needs can really alter the dynamics of a family.

​But, getting the children to come here, they come to classes on their own. That means they can develop their own personality, and we look not at the child's disability, we look at the child's ability.

We try and make that child the best that they can possibly be. So it's not just a bit of sport; it can affect the whole dynamics of a family.

​What's the biggest challenge facing charities like Hopes and Beams at the moment?

Getting volunteers is a big problem, and I think this is especially relevant after COVID-19, where we probably have about a third of the volunteers that we have now.

Before COVID-19, we had quite a lot of older volunteers, but since that time we've lost a lot of them, and also the confidence has been shot. So volunteering, getting volunteers, is very difficult.

​Also, the dynamics have changed. I think people used to retire at like 55 or 60, and then they'd have their time then to do volunteering.

That's not the situation now, people have to work on forever. That in itself is a financial constraint as well that is a problem.

​The other thing is just funding. At all times, we're trying to keep costs as low as we can, but it's very, very hard to get proper funding.

​You're one of the beneficiaries of the Crewe Prize Draw. What would winning support from the community mean to Hopes and Beams?

Support from Crewe Prize Draw would allow us to expand the activities and the projects that we've been planning for ages, but we haven't had the funding to initiate them.

For instance, our cooking programme here, we work with children and young adults with disabilities to teach them to cook from scratch.

The relationships built up in the kitchen with these young children and young adults is fantastic. These hopefully will be skills they can take into life themselves, so if they do live independently, they'll be able to do some cooking.

With funding we want to expand that so we have adults that come in and we do cooking in a wider sense, making things we could sell to the community.

Crewe Prize Draw is also really going to help us raise our profile in the town, helping people to understand what Hopes and Beams is doing in the community.

This includes the kind of activities we have on offer, and also the wide range of ages and people in the community we have activities for.

The funding will be a wonderful thing, and it'll help us to maybe expand our work and to give that quality, but also this will give us the exposure showing we're part of the community.

Having that support from the community and them knowing what Hopes and Beams can also do for them is going to be invaluable.

What are the things you wish every person in Crewe knew about Hopes and Beams?

Our activities on offer, and that we exist. You know, we have people walking past backwards day after day, and they haven't got a clue what we do, because the name itself is a bit vague: "Hopes and Beams".

But, I think the biggest thing is letting people know what we do.

For older members of the community who are isolated and lonely, there's a place here, there's clubs, there's activities for them.

For families with younger children with disabilities who are isolated, they don't know about us. We want to raise our profile and let more people see what we do, bringing more people in.

At Hopes and Beams, we have people that have come to us for many years, and have become part of our community here.

There is really something for everyone, whether it's volunteering for activities or coming and helping out at events, bringing their children here, joining the choir, or coming into the restaurant.

The privilege for us, is the people who have come over many years, we've become part of their lives and they've become part of our lives.

Our lives are richer for knowing the people in our community, and we hope their lives are richer for being part of the Hopes and Beams community as well.

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The Crewe Prize Draw launches with a simple aim, to create winners locally - all while supporting causes like Hopes and Beams.