Chip Knowles! Wetherby Whaler help to feed DIY SOS Team

Chip Knowles!

Wetherby Whaler help to feed DIY SOS Team

In every episode, Nick and his team of local volunteers, trades, and suppliers create life-changing transformations designed to improve the lives of people that need it the most.

Recently there was a one-off special episode for Children in Need as the DIY SOS team joins forces with Radio 2 for a mega build in Leeds. To aide them local fish and chip gurus Wetherby Whaler stepped in to help feed the amassed volunteer workforce

Together the SOS team worked to transform a derelict site into a brandnew base for the young women’s charity Getaway Girls. This was one of the show’s biggest projects ever and was a massive challenge to complete in just ten days.

Radio 2 led a mission to recruit the hundreds of volunteers needed from their millions of listeners, while a brigade of the station’s presenters donned hard hats and high viz. Teatime presenter Sara Cox, Scott Mills, Rylan, and DJs Spoony and Trevor Nelson all got stuck in, shovelling dirt, plastering and painting.

The Getaway Girls’ choir prepared a song to perform in front of the volunteers as a thank-you on reveal day.

Singer-songwriter Emeli Sande coached the girls through their nerves, explaining she was a nervous teenager once too. Finally, the day of the reveal arrived.

Before, the Getaway Girls activities had been spread out across town using temporary spaces. Now, the new building in Seacroft provides a much-needed safe space with facilities all under one roof: a music and media studio, counselling, and activity rooms, a creche, offices and a garden.

Getaway Girls is a Children in Needfunded charity. It’s been supporting young women across Leeds for 35 years, raising aspirations, providing opportunities and offering vital counselling and support.

The Big Build for Children in Need aired in November.

Caroline Murphy director of Wetherby Whaler said. “When we found out The Big Build Team were in our area completing such a massive project for Children in Need, we were only too pleased to provide sustenance for Nick and the team. “

If you would like to donate to BBC Children in Need www.donate.

bbcchildreninneed.co.uk.

Have you helped feed a charity project? Email austen@chippychat.co.uk