Youth Fund
The Story so Far
In our few short months since December 2025 we have raised over £7,000. £1,500 of this amount has come from private donations and attracted prizes for our Saturday Night Gala with a commercial value of over £2,500. From this fund raising we have sponsored two youngsters on a one week residential course for bluegrass and old time in April 2026, Sore Fingers, in addition to recommending two further youngsters through the BBMA. At the end of April we received a grant from the Duchy of Lancaster for £3,200 to go towards a schools program and a shuttle service which will allow us to reach out to the community in general and especially to special needs schools, refugee children and vulnerable women and children.
Our donors are shown below, all donations made through the web site are added to this list interactively.
To donate please scroll to the foot of the page.
Donors
Name | Amount | Sponsorship Type |
|---|---|---|
Anonymous | £850 | Sorefingers 2027 |
Sessions and Sail | £1,695 | Bursary |
Stew Leech | £50 | Sorefingers 2026 |
Lee Goulding | £50 | Sorefingers 2026 |
Dave Wayne | £70 | Sorefingers 2026 |
Bob Ingham | £237 | Sorefingers 2026 |
Andy Mackenzie | £20 | Rainford Junction Youth Fund |
John Hornig | £20 | Rainford Junction Youth Fund |
Anonymous | £1,000 | Rainford Junction Youth Fund |
Duchy of Lancaster | £1,700 | Shuttle Service |
Duchy of Lancaster | £1,500 | Schools Program |
Beneficiaries
It's early days yet but here's four youngsters we've recently helped, click the name button to see the outcome.
Sponsorship to Sorefingers 2026 2026 with the BBMA
I've been playing mandolin and guitar for a few years in the folk scene and at Jack Foster's bluegrass session in Rochdale.
Rainford Junction approached my mum about getting me to Sore Fingers when I was only 17 and I'm really glad they did.
I got to play with the legendary Caspar Cronk along with a lot of other youngsters some of whom I knew through the Rainford initiative. The late night jams were just so good and it was great to play with the tutors on the last night.
I learned so much and, as a result, I'll be around the UK bluegrass community for many years to come!
Sponsorship to Sorefingers 2026 with the BBMA
Sore Fingers was an incredible experience - brilliant tutors, enchanting tunes, and all impossible without the BBMA and The Rainford Junction.
Getting to jam with groups all over the campus opened my eyes to the wonderful picking world there is, here in the UK.
I will never forget being able to play Brownsferry Blues with Tony Trishka, as well as other tutors like Ross Martin, Ned Lubrecki, Becky Buller, and so many more. This has pushed me to integrate myself into the world of bluegrass just that little bit further.
Sponsorship to Sorefingers 2026 (£395)
Sore Fingers opened my eyes the vast international comunity of bluegrass pickers that I had never been exposed to before.
Getting to jam with mixed groups of people has greatly improved my ability to improvise over tunes I'm not familiar with and just through being around and taking in so many playing styles and the breadth of music played.
I will never forget getting the opportunity to play Brownsferry Blues with Tony Trischka and this experience has pushed me to involve myself in every event, festival or session that I can get my hands on.
Sponsorship to Sorefingers 2026 (£395)
Sore Fingers was a week of it's own with some truly memorable moments! I got to meet a whole new community of musicians, learn from some brilliant tutors and jam to a whole new set of tunes.
Being supported to attend this by The Rainford Junction has excelled my style of playing over a short time. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was so great and welcoming.
My highlights were some cracking after-hours jam sessions and performing in the scratch band concert. These experiences, with the musicians I met and the music we made, will set me up for whatever doors open up for me next in Bluegrass.
We have identified that our young musicians need the correct mentorship and support while learning bluegrass and old-time. They are relatively niche genres, with lessons not readily available in schools or third party organisations. As such, we aim to subsidise one to one tuition, using a teacher who is an approved bluegrass and/or old time musician. We do this through using resources such as British Bluegrass News, a publication ran by The BBMA, which lists approved tutors throughout the UK. Where teaching is in person (preferred) we are factoring in costs for travel within a 25 mile radius of the student at Musician Union rates. We want to deliver 5 lessons for five different young musicians each month.
One-to-one tuition is where confidence is built and skills take root. Personalised instruction produces rapid, lasting progress in a way that group settings cannot replicate. By prioritising young tutors who are themselves building professional careers, we also create meaningful income for the next generation of practitioners, investing in the genre's sustainability from both ends at once.
The UK has just two residential courses dedicated to bluegrass and old-time music, both run by Sore Fingers Summer Schools — the country's foremost residential programme for these genres. Sore Fingers brings accomplished bluegrass and old-time musicians over from North America specifically to teach, ensuring students learn directly from practitioners steeped in the authentic tradition. The programme runs two courses annually: a seven-day intensive in April and a two-day event in October. The immersive, residential format creates an environment of focused musical study that cannot be replicated in weekly lessons or local workshops - students are surrounded by the music from morning to night, accelerating progress in a way that is otherwise unavailable in the UK.
Residential courses take that individual development and make it communal. Spending several days immersed in the music alongside like-minded peers accelerates the learning process and makes it far more enjoyable than individual lessons. Skills accelerate through constant informal playing, but the friendships and collaborations that emerge often prove just as valuable, continuing long after the course ends.We intend to subsidise, or cover the cost of, tickets for young musicians in full time education to attend gigs at small roots music venues. We want to cover the costs of 20 tickets a month, for a full year. Most of these tickets will be used during the busier summer and autumn tour month. This will enable young musicians to attend gigs for free and be inspired by the music they see, while also benefiting the venue and music promoters associated.
For young people - our primary beneficiaries - the financial pressures are acute and compounding. Ticket prices for live music have risen sharply as promoters pass on increased operational costs, placing even modest gig attendance out of reach for many. The part-time work that young people in full-time education have traditionally relied on to fund hobbies and cultural participation has become harder to secure and less financially meaningful as the cost of essentials absorbs a greater share of any earnings. Instrument purchases, travel to events, and private tuition fees represent significant outlays that working class families under financial pressure are increasingly unable to absorb. The cumulative effect is that access to roots music both as participants and as audience members - is narrowing along economic lines at precisely the moment when it should be widening.
Gig attendance completes the picture. Subsidising tickets for young people in full-time education removes a barrier that the cost of living crisis has made increasingly real - while supporting the grassroots promoters and venues which make these concerts possible.
Rainford Junction will work directly with touring artists, and where necessary their promoters or agents, to arrange paid tuition sessions in or around a live performance venue, either before or after the show. Framing this as a paid addition to the artist's existing tour engagement makes it an attractive proposition: the artist is already present, and the session represents straightforward additional income with minimal logistical burden. We will identify and match local musicians with visiting artists suited to their instrument or style, offering structured sessions of 30 to 55 minutes in either a one-to-one or small group format. This model creates something genuinely rare - direct, personalised instruction from world-class touring musicians who would otherwise be inaccessible to players in the region.
The wider infrastructure is equally under strain. Promoters face consistently higher costs across staffing, licensing, and production. Venues continue to close at an alarming rate, reducing the number of spaces where this music can be heard and learned. For a start-up organisation like Rainford Junction, fundraising in this climate carries challenges that would not exist in more stable economic conditions.Our response is to work smarter rather than simply spend more. By combining workshops with live performances, we reduce the cost per beneficiary while making the experience richer, turning a gig into an immersive, educational event rather than a one-off transaction. This model allows us to extend the reach of limited funds and keep roots music genuinely accessible to young people regardless of their financial circumstances.
Building on the gig attendance model, this strand pairs live performance with hands-on tuition at grassroots venues. It supports promoters and venues by driving attendance, gives young touring artists an additional income stream on the night, and delivers a richer, more immersive experience for young participants than a gig alone can offer.
Rainford Junction will deliver a schools programme bringing professional bluegrass and old-time musicians directly into classrooms. We will identify two musicians - drawn from established UK or international acts - to perform and showcase the genre to young people, with the dual aim of broadening their musical horizons and signposting routes into learning through organisations like our own.
The programme is modelled on an initiative successfully delivered by True North Music in West Yorkshire in 2023 with Arts Council funding, and we are grateful to True North's founder, Maria Wallace, for sharing three flyers and a three-page outcome statement included with this application, which provide detailed evidence of that programme's impact and inform our own approach. The program is flexible but normally takes the form of two short concerts in the morning followed by three or four workshops ranging from 30 to 55 minutes, finishing in the early afternoon. It is especially popular in special needs schools due to the accessibility of the concerts and the fun, welcoming atmosphere our approved-musicians curate.
All visiting musicians will hold a current DBS check prior to any school engagement.
The program is flexible but normally takes the form of two short concerts in the morning followed by three or four workshops ranging from 30 to 55 minutes, finishing in the early afternoon. It is especially popular in special needs schools.
Designed to grow the next generation of audiences and players by bringing bluegrass and old-time music directly into schools. Beyond introducing young people to an unfamiliar genre, the programme has found a particularly enthusiastic reception in special needs settings, where music's capacity to engage and inspire is especially powerful.
Rainford Junction would like to sponsor original research into the British roots of bluegrass and old-time music - a dimension of the genre's history that remains significantly underexplored within the British Isles. Central to this work will be a fresh examination of Cecil Sharp's landmark collection English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, in which the English folklorist documented the survival of British Isles folk traditions among Appalachian communities in the early twentieth century - traditions that would go on to directly shape what we now recognise as bluegrass and old-time music. This publication from 1932 contains 274 songs and 968 tunes collected between 1916 and 1918 from traditional singers and musicians in Southern Appalachia. We would take these songs and tunes and add strands of history to their back story. We would also be interested in taking as many as possible and re-establishing them in performance with a modern contemporary acoustic feel.
Sponsoring academic research into the British roots of bluegrass and old-time music, with the aim of producing papers and materials that broaden understanding of the genre's heritage. This is an underexplored area with real academic and cultural value.
Rainford Junction is actively developing its relationship with Jam Hall's Kids on Bluegrass Europe (KOBE) programme, based in Burgundy, France. KOBE is a youth-focused bluegrass initiative whose participants perform at La Roche — Europe's largest bluegrass festival, drawing thousands of attendees — as the programme's culminating concert experience. We will arrange travel and accommodation for members of our youth fund to attend and perform at La Roche in 2027 alongside their European peers, providing an international performance platform that would be transformative for young musicians at this stage of their development.
In turn, we will invite KOBE participants to appear at our own Saturday Night Gala, creating a genuine reciprocal exchange between the two organisations and giving European youth musicians a platform in the UK. This partnership has the potential to grow into a lasting cultural link between British and continental bluegrass communities.
Rainford Junction is developing a reciprocal relationship with the European Bluegrass Music Association's Kids on Bluegrass scheme, with a view to exchanging visits and shared programming. Through this connection, we have already been offered the opportunity for a group of our young musicians to perform at La Roche - Europe's largest bluegrass and old-time festival, with thousands of attendees. This is a remarkable platform for any young musician. Securing the funding to accept it is one of our most pressing current priorities.
Programs
Donate
Rainford Junction Youth Fund sponsors activities including; individual tuition, online tuition, residential courses, gig ticket subsidy, gig tuition, school programs and other forms of education and research. The company will ensure all safeguarding precautions are in place for any applicants to the fund under the age of 18.
Amount
0/1000
Add any comments here, please tell us if you want the donation to be anonymous.