Guardian Ballers Bridge Project

Aim: Help us to 'bridge' the gap between youth mental health challenges and the education and support they receive!

Have you or someone you know or love ever journeyed through a mental health challenge?

1 in 4 of us will experience a mental health problem of some kind each year (NHS England, 2016)- it’s normal!

However, mental health support when you’re not in crisis, or wellbeing education delivered in a fun way- is not so normal. 

That’s why we exist for young people and their communities!
Through fun and engaging sporting activities, to provide a mental and emotional ‘bridge’ for themselves or to teach them how to build a bridge for those they know and love.

Who are we?

Guardian Ballers is a mental and emotional wellbeing charitable service in Coventry that is empowering young people (aged 10-25) through Basketball and Educational sessions to BALL, BE and practical volunteering so they can make their community BETTER! 

Founded in partnership with Coventry and Warwickshire Mind in 2021, we deliver sessions in Community settings and Schools, developing leaders and providing the ‘first touch point’ of mental and emotional wellbeing education for many young people. We have reached on average over 1400 young people each year!

We want to see generations of mentally healthy ‘Guardian Ballers’ who grow to choose to serve their community and the world around them!

Why are we crowdfunding?

This Bridge Project funding will enable us to offer our services to Community Organisations and Schools to bridge the gap in their service/curriculum offers. We will deliver to young people who have been identified as having acute or long-standing low level mental-and-emotional challenges (e.g. dealing with grief, anxiety, depression, low confidence).

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a decline in young people's mental health and also resulted in more people than normal processing grief. More-over, patterns of social/physical isolation and reduced physical activity became more of a 'norm'. We are determined to help young people and their communities to bounce-back to greater mental and emotional wellbeing!

At this point in our organisational journey, we have hit a financial challenge and ‘gap’ in our grant funding so this campaign is a critical boost to help us ‘bridge’ into our next phase of sustainable funding through this new special 'bridge project'. These funds will help us fund our staffing and operations in this new project as well as equipping us to fulfil the requests for support that we have already received.

We are passionate about providing our community programmes to those in need at low or no cost so there are no barriers.  

Can you help us to continue to impact lives as we tackle the 'silent mental health pandemic'? 

How is money donated “investing in impact”?

We will be able to deliver our programmes to targeted young people who have been identified as having mental and emotional challenges (e.g. low level anxiety, depression, grief).

We will be able to develop our programmes that grow young and adult leaders.

We will be able to take young people to support charities and other community organisations through volunteering ‘BETTER Experiences’. These 'BETTER experiences' boost the young people’s self-esteem, mood and aspirations as well as helping the local charities’ workforce with extra people-power!

More-over, we are extending the Legacy of the Commonwealth Games as we see the reach of Basketball reach wider in an inclusive way across diverse communities!

If we can raise £10,000 from a minimum of 100 supporters, we hope to secure up to an additional £10,000 from Sport England or other Match-Funding, to propel us forwards in our work!

Overcoming Barriers

We are tackling the disproportions in mental health, sporting, and socio-economic statistics by focusing delivery (not exclusively, but intentionally) on certain communities: Black, Asian and Minority Ethnicities, those from Lower Socio-Economic backgrounds, and Females.
Whether it’s going to certain geographical locations or providing a programme for a community that is being missed..
We want everyone to live a happy and healthy life!

Sow one seed; lasting impact

• £10 could enable us to hand a young person a Wellbeing card and Basketball to keep to boost their mental health or sponsor three young people for one week at a Community Hub.
• £100 could sponsor a child through a BALL-BE-BETTER journey.
• £200 could pay for a volunteer to be DBS-checked, trained, equipped and to join us to be actively assisting ‘on the ground’ with young people.
• £2,500 could fund a whole community outreach event in a deprived community, in partnership with other local charities.
  [Contact us to receive our ‘Invest in impact’ list of how different levels of donations can fund specific projects and purposes]

Whichever financial-seed you choose to sow, trust us that we’ll try our best to ensure that it grows into a lasting impact on a young people or a community!

Be part of something special

We have seen the powerful impact of our programmes over the last 2 and a half years and we want to reach more young people and their communities!

Can you practically-empower us to reach wider and deepen our impact?

Here are four ways to help us reach our target, and make this work a reality...

1. Make a pledge! Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our campaign success! No pledge is too small and definitely not too big!

2. Spread the word! Share our project on your social media platforms, send on the link via phone messages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get!

3. Offer rewards! Get involved if you are a local business/person by donating products or services we can offer to our supporters. Use the 'Contact Project' button at the top of our page to let us know your offer!
Offering professional food hampers, Car servicing, Music lessons, Free stays in a holiday home and any offers are welcome! Share your heart for good causes!

4. Fundraise for us! If you want to run your own fundraiser – maybe a sponsored activity or similar – use the 'Contact Project' button at the top of our page to let us know. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea!
We’ll cheer you on or support you however we can!