It is Give a Day to Carlisle; Give a Day to Kendall; and Give a Day to Ayr. It is Give a Day to your place, your community, town or city.
Place is used in many ways in U.K. social policy and philanthropy. In our conversations, we reflected on what place means to the emerging Give a Day community.
To be rooted in a place is to stay in that place. Over 1 million migrate from one region to another within the U.K.11 A large proportion of those who leave are skilled young people. Cal, a young social entrepreneur from Liverpool is interested in Give A Day because it gives something to those who stay. For Cal, staying in place is signalling progression.
To be rooted in a place is to have intimate knowledge of that place. It isn’t just knowledge of geography, demographics and history. It is knowledge resting on intimate relationships with the place in its people. Jonny, who leads Give a Day Kendall, knows the impact of a fatal car accident in his town. He knew well both the victim and the driver.
To be rooted in a place is to connect to those who live there. When Peter talks about Ayr, he talks about the people who live in Ayr. The stories of Ayr are stories of the people of Ayr.