A restaurant waiter is helping students with their GCSEs with an education project - using £8,000 he saved in tips.
Junior Saunders, 39, saved money left to him over three years to pay for a wellbeing and careers show aimed at supporting young people.
The money collected by the dad-of-five waiter at Miller and Carter in Bristol launched GCSE Boost - a motivational event to help kids through their exams.
More 2,000 young people and hundreds of parents and carers attended the two day event which saw them given careers advice by potential employers.
Junior Saunders, 39, saved money left to him over three years to pay for a wellbeing and careers show aimed at supporting young people.
The money collected by the dad-of-five waiter at Miller and Carter in Bristol launched GCSE Boost - a motivational event to help kids through their exams.
More 2,000 young people and hundreds of parents and carers attended the two day event which saw them given careers advice by potential employers.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00My name is Junior Saunders. I am a bespoke waiter for the Mitchell & Butler brand Miller
00:07& Carter. Also, I'm the founder of Making Careers Happen and also the founder and director
00:13of GCSE Boost Feel Better, which is a brand new revolution in terms of how we deliver
00:19career shows across the country. So, 2019 was the original premise of when I set up
00:24GCSE Boost as an idea. And the reason I set it up at that particular time, again, is because
00:30I saw the need for mental health services, but also the approach of employers around
00:38post-16 learners, which is an equivalent to year 11 learners that are just ready to leave
00:41school. It was very regimented. It was very direct. It was very Victorian, actually, because
00:47it's been around for over 100 years in terms of the style of classroom, the delivery of
00:51education. And because I was brought up in care, my educational experience was varied.
00:57I didn't have structure within my educational journey. What I had was life skills. So, what
01:02I tried to do was set up a GoFundMe page. I've still got £100 in the escrow as we speak.
01:08I haven't even withdrew it yet. It was there, COVID happened, then all of a sudden I'm a
01:13father myself with five children. So, I could see the emotional well-being of my children
01:20and the children that I worked with when we actually depicted back to working online and
01:26virtual learning, I could see the disparity. I could see that people wasn't even logging
01:30on. I said, I'm going to save from my card tips £200 a month. So, what happens is basically
01:37in hospitality now, if you get left a card tip, it obviously is tax deductible and then
01:42you get paid it in your salary. So, essentially what I did is I saved £200 a month for the
01:46three years and I started building boost. The advantage that I had was the trust of
01:52getting 1500 students out because the primary projection was 2000 students and the 500 students
02:01that were missing from the 1500 that attended boost, they were SEND students. So, SEND students
02:07are neurodiverse students, students that have disparities in terms of regulating how they
02:12feel and I want this to be an inclusive event. It is an inclusive event. My background is
02:16SEND. I grew up in care. I'm heavily dyslexic. I have MS. All these different titles that
02:21people tend to put on myself, I have and I wanted to create something for those 500
02:28SEND students that wasn't a part of, you know, overwhelming them too much. Allowing
02:33them to come there and be completely themselves. So, through the 8 grand, I managed to get
02:38the venue and the venue was donated very kindly from Aerospace Bristol. They saw the vision.
02:44They knew it's something I wanted to do. They said, take care of everything else and we're
02:48going to donate you the venue because we understand that this is a need for our students
02:54within the local area and I funded the stage. I funded the travel as well because the schools
02:59have limited budget in terms of resources to get to places. I gave them a travel contribution
03:04as well. I had a few business boosters that donated £1000 towards the cause and GCSE
03:10Boost was born and this is something now that I know that I've tried and it works, that
03:16I want to regulate all throughout the country because actually we have a duty as professionals
03:22as well as, you know, people that have gone through life experiences to allow those students
03:27to become the best version of themselves. You know, we need to work with students on
03:31a more one-to-one group basis than actually creating shows and then we don't see them
03:36again. It's about consistency. Schools need support. Parents and carers need support.
03:42Students need support.