The Lighthouse Project celebrates fifth birthday

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Staff, visitors and service users at the Lighthouse Project open day

The Lighthouse Project celebrated its fifth birthday yesterday (Saturday 6 June) by holding an open day to show off their facilities and projects.

Located on the ground floor of Warwick Mill on Oldham Road, Middleton, the Lighthouse Project is part of Inspire Middleton, and provides a safe and welcoming environment where people can meet, find support and access opportunities that are caring, social and educational.

Carl Roach, Project Manager, said: “Today has been good. We wanted to do the open day to invite people in to come and have a look at our services. It was a good way for people who support us, but work during the week to be able to come along and have a look.

“We have had a good mix of visitors, staff and service users.”

The Lighthouse Project opened its doors to the people of Middleton on 7 June 2010 and helped 10 visitors. In January, the centre saw numbers dramatically increase with the centre passing the 100,000 mark.

Keith Edgar, who uses the service, said: “Coming here has taught me skills that I wouldn’t have learnt before. Without this place then I would be back in jail.”

Kevin Burke, who has been using the Lighthouse Project for three years, said: “The job centre told me to come here and when I came they showed me how to use a computer and do a job search online. Without the service, I wouldn’t have even been able to turn the computer on. It’s a great place.”

Carl added: “The last five years have gone extremely well. We started from scratch and have grown to what we are now.”

The Lighthouse Project also helps with Middleton Central Food Bank. Since the food bank began 11 months ago, 1,200 people have been helped, with 400 of those being children.

Over the past eleven months the food bank has received 14 tonnes of food from the local community, local stores and Kelloggs and has given out 12 tonnes to local residents.

If anyone wants to donate food to the food bank, then they can do so by taking it to The Lighthouse Project or Middleton Central Food Bank at Warwick Mill.