Superstar McKenzie bags £3K YPI grant for Social Bite

McKenzie chose Social Bite for his school Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) project, seeing how the innovative solutions and programmes Social Bite creates have a profound impact on ending homelessness.

What is the Youth and Philanthropy Initiative?

Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) is an empowering programme for school aged children in Scotland to learn about social impact causes in their local area, develop skills, and make a tangible impact on their community.

Each participating school offers the chances for pupils to research a local charity, contacting the charity to learn more about their work, and crafting a presentation for their peers and teachers on how this charity helps a social issue. Each school selects the most creative, well researched, and compelling presentation for its £3000 grant.

You can look at participating schools in your area here.

Superstar Supporter McKenzie

As a student of Gracemount High School, McKenzie was able to research the impact that Social Bite has in his local area of Edinburgh: from our Social Bite coffee shop on Rose Street providing free food to anyone in need every weekday, to our transformative Social Bite Village project in Granton.

What makes McKenzie’s win of his school’s YPI project even more special was that he won the grant single-handedly, choosing to complete the project on his own, rather than in a group like many of his peers.

McKenzie reached out to our Youth and Community Fundraising team to gain a better insight into the work of Social Bite and the impact that this £3,000 grant could have. His hard work, independent research, and enthusiasm for the cause were clearly evident in his presentation – leading to his project being chosen and Social Bite being the recipients of this donation.

“We are so proud of McKenzie winning the competition at his school. All other participants were part of a group but McKenzie did it on his own. McKenzie and I were invited down to see how the charity would benefit from this donation. It was good to get an insight into how this charity helps homeless people and the amazing work the staff do to support people into permanent accommodation” – McKenzie’s Mum

A massive well done from everyone at Social Bite to McKenzie for all of his hard work. This £3,000 grant will do so much to help break the cycle of homelessness by funding our innovative and impactful programmes; such as our free food provision, our JobsFirst supported employment scheme, and our goal to replicate our Social Bite Village model in two new locations across Scotland as well.

If you are interested in your school getting involved in YPI or supporting Social Bite through a fundraising challenge please contact our team at community@social-bite.co.uk