Outside In started as the brainchild of two local parents, Mhairi and John Helme. Our children all need somewhere to play inside when the weather is bad but there isn’t anywhere in our town devoted to indoor play that is open continuously. We’ve met hundreds of other parents who agree, so we decided to look into opening somewhere as a community group. As Kendal has very sadly lost two previous soft play centres over the last few years, we decided to look at not for profit models to see if we can create somwhere sustainable for the town, somewhere that will be open for years to come for everyone. We now have a fantastic committee of twelve people with a wide range of applicable skills alongside several close advisers who have agreed to help us make Outside In a reality. We really do have a great team! We really are lucky that SLDC has been incredibly supportive of our project and has really given Outside In wings. 

We have begun to collaborate with local people, businesses, organisations and other charities to make an amazing place for our children to play and learn and somewhere where parents can come and feel pampered, supported and looked after.  We have been humbled by some of the responses we have had from the Town about our project and the ways it could help the lives of many local people living with adversity.  The idea has evolved from simply a cafe with a small soft play area into something much bigger and we are very excited...