Small grants that funded a child's first night sleeping outdoors: tents, residentials and bothy trips that removed cost as the barrier to camping.

Most people remember their first night sleeping outdoors: a tent in the garden, a school residential, a den built out of whatever was lying around. For a lot of children, that memory never gets made. Not because they wouldn't love it, but because a tent costs money, a residential costs money, and in some of the country's most deprived wards, that's the whole story. Several small Foundation grants have gone toward removing exactly that barrier: the cost of a first night under canvas.

Building the space to camp

Teignmouth Community School serves a ward in the top 10% of the country for child income deprivation. Many families can't afford a tent, let alone a paid school trip, so the school set out to run regular camp nights for its Key Stage 2 children instead, using its own field and a pizza oven as the starting point. A Foundation grant paid for the tents and equipment. Around 150 children a year now get a night outdoors they'd otherwise never have had.

Tower View Primary School in Burton upon Trent had the same idea on a smaller scale: use the school's own grounds to teach children aged 4 to 11 to sleep outdoors confidently, then build up to residential weekends. The school already subsidised two residential trips a year as heavily as it could, sometimes waiving the cost entirely, but funds only stretched so far in an area with high levels of deprivation. Tents from the Foundation let it go further.

Taking it further afield

For some groups, the destination is the point. Wise Up Workshops, a community interest company in Morecambe, asked ten young people from their group, aged 8 to 17, whether they'd ever seen the mountains across Morecambe Bay. None had. Founder Elspeth Roberts wanted to give them a real Lake District experience: three days at Gyhll Head with rock climbing, a zip wire and kayaking on Windermere. The group included young carers, children experiencing poverty or bereavement, and others affected by mental health issues or additional needs. A Foundation grant helped fund the trip.

Lancashire Boys & Girls Clubs works with affiliated clubs across some of the most deprived areas in the country by the index of multiple deprivation. A grant helped 12 disadvantaged 15-year-olds spend five days at Ormside Mill on a personal development residential: gorge walking, rock climbing, caving and an overnight wild camp, alongside a social action project for the centre itself. As Andrew from the organisation put it, the residential experience builds self-awareness and social skills that ease the transition into adult life, on top of the outdoor skills themselves.

The Green Team, an Edinburgh charity, took a similar group of children even further off the map: a two-night bothy trip to the Scottish Borders for eight young people identified by school staff and social workers as struggling at school or dealing with chaotic homes. Many had never spent a night away from Edinburgh. Penny from the Green Team said the effect on previous trips had been transformational, building confidence and resilience and helping children rediscover how much fun it is simply to play.

Grins all round

Castle Manor Academy in Haverhill, Suffolk, where close to half the students come from low-income families, has run outdoor residentials at Thorpe Woodland in Thetford for several years, funded in part by the Foundation. One trip took ten girls with special learning needs for an overnight stay in bell tents: canoeing, climbing and archery by day, tea round the fire at night. Learning Outside the Classroom Coordinator Bex Baldwin said the climbing in particular was transformative for a group of shy girls with anxiety:

"They had a great time canoeing, climbing and doing archery. They especially loved the climbing which was amazing for a bunch of shy girls with anxiety, they came to life and grins all round!"

None of these trips needed much: a field, some tents, a night away from home. For the children on the other side of them, that was everything.

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The Alpkit Foundation supports projects that enable people to overcome the obstacles preventing them from Going Nice Places and Doing Good Things. Find out how to apply.