This summer, we have had the joy of celebrating the impact of Playful Places, Playful People; a project funded by The National Lottery Community Fund, which gave the opportunity for over 1500 individual children to come and play with us at over more than 500 pay as you feel play sessions since 2024.
To celebrate in style, we held a summer celebration event, Our Story, Your Story, where we played, ate cake (of course!), and had a blast at our Boundary Way site while sharing and gathering stories from our long time play friends, partners – and even the mayor – to hear about the difference Wolves Play Cafe has made in the lives of local families and communities.
Across the stories shared over the summer, we’ve heard a particular appreciation for the friendly welcome at play sessions, the open-ended play activities which inspire imagination, and the chance to connect as a family and with other families in a safe, outdoor space. From our littler play friends, we’ve also heard a real love for planting, story-time, and especially for our mud kitchen.
“It’s great to have a low cost, reliable place to play with the kids. It means we get out the house and you can meet other parents, which saves your sanity in these early years.”
The stories shared how Wolves Play Cafe offers something unique to Wolverhampton; acknowledging how families might struggle otherwise to access outdoor spaces for play and adventure, while also partnering with other great organisations who share the same values to expand the offer of play across the city in a way that aims to be collaborative and supportive of one another’s mission.
Our play sessions over the three years have taken place across three main sites, in areas of high levels of deprivation where opportunities for families to play may be limited by cost or travel, and families are more likely to face isolation owing to factors like language barriers and lack of community spaces. Alongside the impact we’ve seen on our play friends, we have also had the privilege of helping shape these spaces, by making them into safe and accessible places to play and share a conversation over a cuppa.
“It’s just the joy in the little things and figuring what you can do with sticks and picking up leaves and collecting things. It’s taught her to be a bit more imaginative.”
“Whether they’re chatting about the weather or how terrible their two year olds have been… you’re all chatting with parents in similar stages of parenthood which is so important.”
And of course, none of this happens with our brilliant team in yellow. Our team brings so much care and energy to making play happen and getting stuck into each session, with caregivers sharing how valued they felt to have their names remembered and to be greeted with a smile. And not least, the event provided the perfect chance to honour Helen and Lisa, who created the vision for WPC in 2019, with a heartfelt thanks from the team and everyone who has joined in with playing along the way.
The Our Story, Your Story celebration was a lovely reminder the story of Wolves Play Cafe is bigger than the sessions being run, and has contributed to so many individuals’ stories in creating a space for families to feel welcome and build lasting relationships, grow in confidence to get stuck in and explore, and – most of all – have fun together.
“…it’s a really welcoming space. It’s really friendly. It’s really well thought out. It’s also really great to be able to get little ones outside exploring, building things, they will probably learn things and pick up things you haven’t even realised they have just through listening and I think it’s just really valuable. It’s a really unique kind of set up and I’m really glad I’ve been able to be part of it for so many years.”
We are so grateful for our play friends who joined us over the summer and shared your stories. These stories will help us show the difference play has made to families during this chapter, and help shape how the story of Wolves Play Cafe continues – because we’re certainly not finished playing!