Groundwork Yorkshire’s ‘Go Wild’ summer playschemes are designed to give children aged 7-11 the opportunity to learn new skills, make friends, and build confidence through fun and educational activities. The programmes ran throughout August in Goole’s West Park and Selby’s Community Centre playing fields, with an additional nature-focused day hosted at Drax’s Skylark Centre.
As part of the programme, Drax colleagues delivered interactive STEM sessions, including bottle rocket launches and bridge building, which proved a highlight for many participants. In Selby, the rocket-making workshop even drew in the whole park for a countdown, creating a memorable moment for the children and their families.
One of the children involved in the bottle rocket launch session
In total, five sessions were held across Selby and Goole, with more than 21 hours of activities delivered. Thanks to Drax’s support, the Goole group also enjoyed a day of outdoor adventure at the Skylark Centre, with activities including den building, orienteering and woodland games, made possible by funding for transport provided by Drax.
Groundwork Yorkshire has been running the Goole Go Wild scheme for the past four years, offering children from the local area a safe, fun and supportive environment during the summer holidays. This year’s partnership with Drax brought added focus on STEM inspiring young people to get curious about the world around them.
Amanda Scrimgeour, Programme Manager, Groundwork Yorkshire said: “Our scheme is structured to provide safe, fun, new learning opportunities for children, and we’ve done it once again! Drax’s community team engaged fully with the children, sparking their interest in STEM with rocket making and bridge building. The support from Drax made a huge difference to the young people’s summer, and we’re incredibly grateful for their involvement.”
Nick Robinson, Drax’s UK Community Manager, said: “We’re proud to support initiatives like ‘Go Wild’ that give young people in our local communities the chance to learn, explore and have fun during the summer holidays. It’s fantastic to see their enthusiasm for STEM activities like rocket building – experiences like these can spark an interest that stays with them for life. Partnering with Groundwork Yorkshire allows us to make a real difference to children’s confidence, wellbeing and aspirations.”
ENDS
Media contacts:
Kieran Wilson
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About Drax
Drax’s purpose is to enable a zero carbon, lower cost energy future. Our strategic aims are to be a global leader in both carbon removals and sustainable biomass pellet production, and to be a UK leader in dispatchable, renewable generation.
Our operations
Drax owns and operates a portfolio of flexible, low-carbon and renewable UK power assets – biomass, hydro, and pumped storage generation – which provide dispatchable power and system support services to the electricity grid.
We are the UK’s largest source of renewable power by output, and Drax Power Station is the UK’s largest single source of renewable electricity by output.
Through our pellet production facilities in North America, Drax is a leading integrated producer of sustainable biomass. Drax has 18 operational and development pellet production sites which will have a nameplate capacity of around 5.4 million tonnes once expansions are complete.
Drax supplies renewable electricity to UK industrial and commercial customers, offering a range of energy-related services including energy optimisation, as well as electric vehicle strategy and management.
Our future
Drax is progressing options for carbon removals using bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) technology globally and at our UK biomass power station. We are progressing plans to develop 7 million tonnes of carbon removals through BECCS by 2030.
In 2024, we launched Elimini, a US-based company to lead our global efforts to deliver carbon removals at scale. Elimini’s purpose is to remove carbon for good. To achieve this, it is convening engineers, environmentalists, communities, investors, and innovators to scale the market for carbon removals, with the aspiration of transforming our economies from carbon emitters to carbon removers. For more information, visit elimini.com.
