Tuesdays night at around 12am I smile as I know that this time tomorrow I will have done something worth while with a group of people who are giving up their time for no other reason than because they want to.

This Wednesday was a little different as instead of the normal 4-6miles our task would be taking us 8-9miles deep into the North of borough to visit Avenues Youth Project

Avenues mission is “ To offer young people living and working in the North Westminster area access, using youth work strategies, to a range of high quality, formal and informal learning and recreational opportunties. This will enable young people to: constructively challenge the personal, social and educational disadvantages they face, lead positive, creative and fulfilled lives, contribute to the communities of which they are part.” The Avenues Youth Project was established in 1979 to provide activities outside of school hours for young people aged 13-19 living in the North Paddington Area of Westminster. In particular, it was established in recognition of the lack of facilities targeting young Afro-Caribbean people in the area. Since that time the project has grown from strength to strength and in line with the diversity of our local community, they now attract and welcome a wide range of young people from the many different communities that make up Queen’s Park and Westminster as a whole. During the years 1999 – 2001, the Avenues’ Management Committee raised over £2m to build a purpose built youth centre which replaced the existing single storey breeze block building. We now operate out of a 2 storey building comprising of classrooms, kitchen, dance studio, recording studio, radio room and large hall.

Avenues have a number of rooms that are used by young people and a few of them were in desperate need of a fresh lick of paint.

We arrived at HQ as normal and when asked who was here for the long run everybody raised their hands. I smiled and said lets go!

Out the door over to Green Park, through the back streets of Mayfair, through Hyde Park, past Westbourne Park, down the Harrow Road and as if by magic 40-45mins later we had arrived.

Everyone was still smiling and though the first leg was challenging we were all happy we did it.

We were greeted by Zippy one of the long standing youth workers, given a tour of the building and given a run down of the history of it. The most amazing thing about this space is they have everything a young person could want for entertainment. A studio with their own radio show, games room for table tennis, arts and craft area for creativity, chill out zone, a kitchen for cooking and most importantly adults that they can talk to.

We were shown the space introduced to the paint, the rollers and the brushes and off we went.

Honestly the walls were yellow to start with and now they are white. Task completed in a record 24minutes. Zippy was amazed.

He thanked us gave us some water and asked if we could return next week for a second coat. Our response OF COURSE WE WILL.

Now for round 2 of this beast of a run. Are we ready I said YES! They replied… Lets do this.

Now I always try my best to show visitors parts of London that they might not have seen before so we took a different route back. Its always funny when you pop out somewhere and people say “Ahaaaaaaaa, so that’s where we are” . Tonight was no different and I could see on everyones faces that arriving at the bottom of Hyde Park was a great feeling. Some were tired but we persevered and everyone got home safely. later than usual ;-) , but safely. A job well done.

Thankyou for your time and willingness to literally go that extra mile.

Have a great week people. Hydrate, stretch, smile and please, continue to do small things with great love.