A GROUP of Young Influencers in Wrexham have given a £1,000 grant to help homeless young people have a good Christmas.

AVOW Young Influencers are a group of people between the ages of 15 and 25 years, who compose a grant panel for youth-led grants. These young people make real funding decisions about grants. At their last meeting, they received a grant application for £75 to help get presents for disadvantaged children.

"It simply wasn't enough," said 13-year-old Fionn McCabe.

The Leader: Handing over the AVOW Young Influencers donations.Handing over the AVOW Young Influencers donations.

The group then debated about what they should do about it. No one wanted to give less but these experienced grant-funders debated about the best way to help.

From the many options before them they settled on a grant of £500, to be used to buy warm blankets, socks and gifts, to ensure the young person receiving the gift not only had something to open but could be warm and cosy in the face of a cost-of-living crisis.

In addition to the £500 for Christmas presents, they also allocated another £500 for emergency bags. These bags are for when a young person is forced to leave their home and have nothing. The emergency bag will contain emergency essentials for this difficult and traumatic event.

"It's so fundamentally connected to everything that we do," added Leo McCabe, 15.

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The gifts were delivered to the Info Shop on Lambpit, by the young influencers themselves on Monday night. They were received by Martine Vout, Info Shop manager. The Info Shop is a free and confidential generic information, advice, guidance and support service for 11 to 25-year-olds on any issue that young people may face.

Charlotte Elms of the Youth Homeless Prevention service said: "From the heart, this will make such a difference to young people this Christmas. It means someone is thinking about them."

The Young Influencers group, part of AVOW (Association of Voluntary Organisation in Wrexham), have given out more than £7,184 in grants to youth-led grants over the last year. They meet every three weeks on TY AVOW Egerton Street. The next meeting is on January 9, between 4.30pm-6pm. Young Influencers are welcome to come along or email Katherine.prince@avow.org for more information.