KidsOut
KidsOut is a UK charity dedicated to bringing fun and happiness into the lives of disadvantaged kids by positive activities and experiences that contribute to their development, well-being and outlook for a happier more inclusive future. It partners with Rotary to support:
Rotary - KidsOut Day
This is an event carried out by a large number of the Rotary Clubs throughout UK and Ireland on the same day – taking kids with learning or physical difficulties to some fun place for the day. From a small beginning in 1990 when Kingston Rotary Club organised a day out at Thorpe Park for 200 disabled and disadvantaged children, this enterprise has now grown into a nationwide Rotary activity which in 2012 saw 25,000 children attending venues all over the UK.
We have been participating in this day out for many years and have taken the pupils of Mitchell House School out for the day to the Portaferry Aquarium, Castle Espie, the Zoo and Streamvale Open Farm, Dundonald and the Ulster Museum.
Rotary - KidsOut Toy Boxes
The Rotary KidsOut Christmas Toy Box is an initiative which provides children who have fled domestic violence and are living in refuge with a brand new box of toys filled with kindly donated toys. The Club was just one of many Rotary Clubs across the UK participating in a nationwide campaign to provide a Rotary Christmas Toy Box. All the toy boxes were packed by KidsOut with brand new toys and distributed on behalf of the Club straight to refuges for the mothers to give to their children from Santa in time for Christmas. The Rotary Club of Belfast sent 10 boxes in 2020 and it is hoped to take part in this again this year.
KidsOut Day 2020/21
Sadly with the pandemic it has not possible to hold it in the last two years in June, however the Club hope, in conjunction with KidsOut, to organise a day out in the form of a cinema visit for some of the children in Mitchell House School later in the year.