London Mayor Boris Johnson challenged kids to a game of Connect 4 on a recent visit to a Green Street Green charity for children with complex medical needs.
Mr Johnson was visiting The Maypole Project to see how a £10,000 grant has helped to recruit volunteers to get children with disabilities and complex illnesses involved in sports.
The funding, received from the mayor’s volunteering programme Team London, has allowed the charity to recruit 10 specialist volunteers for its Maypole Active club.
Maypole Active provides hour-long sessions which introduce children with disabilities and illness and their siblings to a range of sports skills and activities adapted to their needs.
Newly-elected Uxbridge and South Ruislip MP Mr Johnson, joined by volunteering senior adviser Veronica Wadley, chatted to volunteers, parents and children at the charity.
And as one child showed off a toy spaceship he had built, the major cracked a joke about his brother and Orpington MP Jo Johnson, being newly appointed science minister and his ambitions to build ‘British rockets for British people’.
Around 90,000 adult volunteers are signed up to Team London and 190,000 kids to the Team London Young Ambassadors programme, figures the mayor is extremely proud of.
He told News Shopper: “My ambition is that the operation should continue to grow and to flourish and I hope very much that the next mayor will take it on.
“It’s really kept going. There are loads and loads of people who just want to give their time and Team London is a way of helping them.
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“Before I became mayor, one of the things people complained about was that it was so hard in London to do good.
“It was so hard to find a way of being a volunteer or doing something useful because there was so much bureaucracy.”
Emily Arnold, 20, has been a Maypole Active volunteer for 18 months.
The former Bullers Wood School pupil, of Brookmead Avenue, said: “I’ve loved to see the children grow - when they first started coming to the sessions, they were really shy.
“Now they’re always running around, it’s such a difference.
“It’s almost like a respite hour for the parents and the siblings get to interact together.”
The mayor said he hoped the charity became more widely known so other people would consider volunteering.
He added: “There will be many people out there who may read this or see this thinking, ‘That could be me or that could have been me and I would love to come and help.’
“And I really hope they do.”
The Maypole Project supports around 1,000 people every year across six south east London boroughs including Bromley, Lewisham and Greenwich.
Mr Johnson is greeted by Maypole Project CEO Sally Flatteau-Taylor
Charity CEO, Sally Flatteau-Taylor said: “Funding from Team London has provided truly positive support to The Maypole Project.
"Financially it has supported us by enabling us to recruit, train and supervise a really strong team of volunteers who in turn support 15 children with chronic conditions and their siblings in inclusive and adaptable sporting activities."
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