Latest News

Brick Lane Benefit Evening

01/05/2024

It was another successful Brick Lane Benefit Evening last month, we welcomed a selection of supporters, donors, young people, volunteers and families we work with to Brick Lane Music Hall in Custom House for a fabulous evening of music, dance and laughs.

Vincent Hayes MBE, the Brick Lane Music Hall cast, and team delivered a wonderful show and evening once again and with all donations tallied, we raised just over £17k. An amazing amount, and one of our most successful benefit nights ever, with over £100k now raised from our Brick Lane Music Hall fundraisers since 2016!

All funds raised will go towards furthering our work, ensuring many vulnerable children and young people in Newham will benefit from a whole range of opportunities and experiences this year and beyond.

Thank you to all those who attended the evening and donated, your continous support is truly appreciated. 

Brand New LEGO Workshops for Schools

12/02/2024

We have brand new LEGO workshops available for schools free of charge.

We are running LEGO workshops for young people aged 5 to 10 with special educational needs on Thursdays in our LEGO room at our hub in Canning Town.

The workshops aim to develop young people's creativity, imaginative play, communication, collaborative play, problem solving and fine motor skills with focused activities and free play. 

Interested in booking your school in? Contact Paula


New Projects!

05/02/2024

We have two new projects starting this month, the first is an Afterschool club - Bugs and Shrubs in our Kevin Jenkins OBE Outdoor Learning Centre and a youth Multisports Club. Check out our ‘What’s On’ pages for more information.

Family Fun Days Are Back

29/01/2024

Our Family Fun Days are back once again this year, running from Sunday 24th March on selected dates up to September. Click here to see dates

Join us for a fun family day out with a variety of activities including sports, adventure play, arts and crafts, themed activities, outdoor games and much more!

Booking is required, contact bookings@theaaazone.com to book your family’s place.

The Kevin Jenkins OBE Newham Christmas Toy Appeal - Roll of Honour

02/01/2024

Our Roll of Honour for our Kevin Jenkins OBE Newham Christmas Toy Appeal 2023 is here. A HUGE thank you to all those who have supported us this year. Thank you 2897 times over.

Kevin Jenkins OBE Newham Christmas Toy Appeal

22/12/2023

We've Done It! Thank you to all the supporters and donors who made it possible this year for our Kevin Jenkins OBE Newham Christmas Toy Appeal to help young people in Newham this Christmas receive Christmas presents they would otherwise not receive. Thank you 2897 times over! Keep an eye out for our roll of honour with the list of this year's supporters.

The Kevin Jenkins OBE Newham Christmas Toy Appeal

08/11/2023

And we're off! Our Kevin Jenkins OBE Newham Christmas Toy Appeal 2023 is once again running this year; where we are aiming to help 3000 disadvantaged young people in Newham receive a gift this Christmas. A HUGE thank you to the wonderful Tomas Soucek, Vladmir Coufal and Maxwel Cornet from West Ham United who came along to launch our Kevin Jenkins OBE Newham Christmas Toy Appeal. Our young people enjoyed chatting with and meeting the players and participating in the launch. How can you help? Check out our dedicated Just Giving Page or our Amazon Wishlist to buy a gift! Any donation makes a huge difference!

Charity Christmas Cards & Calendars

07/11/2023

This year we are selling our young people designed Christmas cards in three different designs, as well as our 2024 desktop calendars which showcase all our work this past year. If you would like to support us, you can purchase both of these from our shop here.

First Annual Awards Evening

25/10/2023

Last Thursday, we had our first Annual Awards Evening to celebrate our young people's achievements with their friends and family. We also gave out awards for our adult volunteers with Volunteer Of The Year Awards.

Our young people received awards including: Trinity Arts Awards, Young Person of The Month, Bronze Duke of Edinburgh and Jack Petchey Award.

Well done to all those who received awards!

Community Christmas Trees

24/10/2023

It is never too early to start thinking about Christmas! We are once again selling beautiful real Christmas Trees through our enterprise - Community Christmas Trees, with all profits going back into our future work.

Order your tree and our 2024 calendars and young people designed Christmas cards to send out this Christmas from our brand new online store. The deadline for orders is the 20th November 2023.

Stan Harris OBE Sponsored Walk

23/10/2023

Our Stan Harris OBE Sponsored Walk took place just over a week ago and was a huge success with a great turnout of supporters from our groups, families and staff. We raised a grand total of just over £1200 for our Kevin Jenkins OBE Newham Christmas Toy Appeal, which will make a massive difference to young people in Newham this Christmas. Thank you to all those who took part and all those who sponsored and donated.

Brand New Promotional Video

05/09/2023

We're excited to share our first promotional video with you! It showcases all the incredible work we've done with children and young people in Newham. We're proud to be making a real difference in their lives, and we want to share that with you.  

Please take a moment to check it out and see the impact we're making in our community by following this link

New Dates Added For Our Family Fun Days

05/09/2023

We've added 3 more dates for our Family Fun Days this year, with 2 more in October and 1 in November. Join us for lots of fun activities for all ages! We have everything from sports, arts and crafts, face painting, adventure play and much more! To book your family's place contact Bookings

Visit From Team GB Star

16/08/2023

Last week our playscheme had a visit from Team GB Softball player Crista Reed-Thomas who worked with the group, teaching them how to play softball, the rules and lots of tips! A huge thank you to Crista and the MLB for arranging this visit, our young people had a fantastic time.

Kevin Jenkins OBE Easter Egg Appeal

April 2023

We are delighted to announce a successful 2023 Easter Appeal! Launched in March with a call for support from organisations, the local community and companies where we had thousands of eggs donated!! 

A BIG thank you to AAA patron Ricky Grover who launched this years appeal and thank you to everyone who helped us surpass our target of 2000 eggs, including the Bikers group, led by long standing AAA supporter John Pryke, The Newham Rotary Club, John Ratomski and the Hammers Supporting Foodbanks, Zurich Insurance, Newham Chamber of Commerce, Berkeley Group, Higgins Partnerships, Valero, Aspire Support and Learn and young fundraisers Neo and Rico, raising over 450 donations as part of their ‘Treats for Kids’ initiative.
 
With donations counted, we broke through our target, providing Easter Eggs for over 2,000 vulnerable children and young people in time for Easter Sunday. We can’t thank our supporters enough for all their efforts, with the Appeal needed more than ever given the many challenges local families are facing. You have helped to make a big difference to every child benefiting this Easter.

We’ve Added More Bricks To Our LEGO Clubs

19/04/2023

We are so excited to announce that we will be adding more bricks to our our LEGO Clubs, supported by LEGO. 

Starting from the first week of May, we are adding additional clubs at both Arc in the Park and Abbey Hub!

Clubs will now be running at Arc in the Park 3 days a week: Tuesdays will be for ages 9 to 11, offering free play and more challenging projects.
Thursdays will be for ages 5 to 8,  offering free play and some small LEGO projects.
Saturdays are for SEND young people aged 5 to 11 only (limited spaces available).

We aren't letting our young people at Abbey Hub miss out on all the extra building fun either! We're adding an extra day at Abbey Hub too! Clubs will be running on Tuesdays and Saturdays for ages 5 to 10 on both days.