The 27th July was the date over 1,000 families came to Blyth Marketplace to celebrate our Annual Youth Festival!

The festival was opened by new up and coming singer Channy; who is the NE Youth young ambassador- she entertained the crowds with her version of recent hits! As well as Channy the crowds were also treated to dance displays by Timestep and Silx Street Style group, we even had some superheroes and belle from beauty and the beast arrive to get involved!

There was lots for the young people and their families to get involved with; we had Facepainting, Candyfloss, Balloon Modelling, Smoothies from the smoothie bike, Archery and segway courtesty of Active Northumberland and a mobile climbing wall that was erected in the market place all afternoon as well as a rodeo bull, bouncy castle, laser tag and penalty shootout- and the best part was this was all FREE!

The purpose of the youth festival is for Silx and other organisations to have an opportunity to showcase their work and show the community of Blyth what is on offer. We had an art stall on the day where young people could design and make their own bracelets and keyrings, The Newsham Getaway had a stall too! Other organisations at the event were The Buffalo Centre, Active Northumberland, Northumbria NHS Health Trainers, Northumberland Fire & Rescue ans the TA.

This year we were also selling Balloons in Memory of one of our young people Skye Aitmen who sadly lost her battle with cancer the week before the festival and we are pleased to say we raised a fantastic £260 to be donated to the Great North Children’s hospital. The young people released the Balloons in Skye’s memory which was a lovely end to the day.

Jackie, our senior worker said ‘The team would like to thank everyone who supported the event, it was a brilliant day and I am very grateful to everyone who made it a success’

As always the Youth Festival was a wonderful start to the Summer Holidays and we are looking forward to making next years event just as good!