1891
Established
29
Schools in 2024
368
Holidays in 2024
Welcome to Derbyshire Children’s Holiday Centre
Since 1891, Derbyshire Children’s Holiday Centre has given children facing challenging circumstances in their daily lives, the chance to experience something many of us take for granted – a holiday by the sea. We are a small but determined Derbyshire charity with a big impact, built on the belief that every child deserves joy, adventure, and memories to cherish.
Why we do what we do
Too many children in Derbyshire are growing up in poverty or difficult circumstances. Many will never enjoy a holiday, feel sand between their toes, or experience carefree time away from daily struggles. These missed opportunities don’t just take away fun – they limit confidence, wellbeing, and hope for the future.
What we do about it
We provide free, fully supported seaside holidays at our centre in Skegness. Here, children are cared for by our dedicated staff and volunteers, enjoy good food, laughter, trips to the beach, and activities that nurture their confidence, resilience, and friendships. These holidays give children a break from challenges at home and the chance to return happier, more confident, and ready to thrive.
Why we’re needed
For many children, this is their very first holiday. The difference is lasting – they come home with memories, smiles, and a sense that they matter. With rising child poverty, our work is more needed now than ever.
How you can help change a child’s life
Donate – just £384 funds a holiday for one child. You can do this by using either our ‘Go Fund Me‘ or ‘Just Giving‘ appeal pages,
Fundraise – take on a challenge, hold an event, or join one of our campaigns.
Volunteer – give your time at our centre or support us locally. Email: [email protected]
Partner with us – schools, businesses, and community groups can work with us to bring hope to children.
How you can help change a child’s life
- Connect & share with others – follow our journey on social media as we plan for a brighter future. Share our mission and story to help us raise awareness.
- Share your story – have you or a close family member visited our Centre for a holiday? Share your story with us – we would love to hear from you! Email us [email protected]Come along and join in – look at our events page to see what’s going on, where and when, come along, have a chat about what we are up to and how you might be able to help.
Together, we can continue to make a lasting difference in their lives. Every contribution, big or small, creates brighter futures for Derbyshire’s children.
Our Story
135 Years of Changing Children’s Lives
For 135 years, Derbyshire Children’s Holiday Centre has been helping children discover the joy, freedom and wonder of a seaside holiday. Since 1891, thousands of Derbyshire children facing poverty, family difficulties, bereavement, caring responsibilities, disability, or other challenges have been given the opportunity to escape their everyday worries and enjoy a few precious days by the sea.
Today, that mission is just as important as it was 135 years ago.
Why We Need Your Help
Many of the children we support have never had a holiday. Some have never seen the sea. Others are carrying worries that no child should have to face.
A holiday may sound simple, but for a child it can be transformational. A week away means:-
* Making new friends
* Building confidence and independence
* Learning new skills
* Having fun and feeling cared for
* Creating happy memories that last a lifetime
Most importantly, it gives children the chance to simply be children.
“I didn’t want to come home. It was the best week of my life.”
The Difference You Can Make
In 2026, we restarted our holiday programme and children are once again paddling in the sea, building sandcastles, exploring new places and discovering new confidence in themselves.
Every donation to our 135th Anniversary Appeal will help provide free residential holidays for Derbyshire children aged 6–11.
* £5 helps provide treats and activities.
* £15 helps cover food and transport.
* £32 a month can fund an entire holiday place over a year.
* £380 can give one child a complete life-changing holiday.
Looking to the Future
As we celebrate 135 years of service, we are not simply looking back at our history we are building the next chapter.
With your support, we can ensure that many more children experience the magic of the seaside, the kindness of caring adults, and the opportunity to flourish.
Be Part of Our Story
Whether you donate £5 or £500, every gift helps create brighter futures for Derbyshire children.
Please support our 135th Anniversary Appeal today and help us continue changing lives for another 135 years.
Thank you for helping Derbyshire’s children flourish!
Facebook Posts
Contact Us Today
Some of Our Valued Supporters
🙏 It's thank you time from us 🙏
As a charity we are so grateful to anyone who supports us in our mission to give children who need a break a holiday by the sea.
There are so many people who give us so much, whether it's their time, fundraising or equipment.
This week's thank you goes to Derby Grammar School which very kindly loaned us something very valuable: their school minibuses!
We were certainly able to put them to great use, driving 17 Derby school children to Skegness and back during May half term.
Thank you to Derby Grammar for your buses - they were a very big help. Transport is one of the challenges in running our charity and we were very grateful indeed for the support.
There are all sorts of ways you can help a charity like ours.
Think you can help? Get in touch with our CEO Janine Holmes at [email protected] ... See MoreSee Less
1 CommentComment on Facebook
Enjoy .I spent many holidays there xx
Monday June 22nd 2026 | St George’s Catholic Voluntary Academy
During our round robin today, collecting our infamous yellow tins, visiting supporters and collecting funds, we had the absolute pleasure of being able to pop into St George’s Catholic Voluntary Academy.
It was my first visit there, although it is a school where the Derbyshire Children's Holiday Centre has had many interactions over the years. Today the reason was to collect a fantastic £294.86 which had been raised from a Wear What You Like fundraiser recently.
This will make a difference to us and more importantly the children that benefit from holidays with our charity. Specifically, we will use the money raised to help in providing holidays in 2026 at the centre in Skegness which are much-needed for disadvantaged children from Derbyshire, giving them the opportunity to make wonderful memories that will stay with them for a lifetime. Support like such as this plays a vital role in ensuring we can carry on this important work.
Alongside the independent fundraising events such as that mentioned above, the charity have an active set of events through 2026 aimed at raising more funds, these are quite varied, ranging from the Turnditch and Windley Show, Hot August Nights in Mickleover and a curry night at the Himalayan Gurkha restaurant in Derby. Our next big event is to celebrate the charity’s 135th anniversary at Repton School in June, and a 102-mile sponsored walk by two people from Derby covering many of the Derbyshire towns from where we take children on holiday.
Our events page is here dchc.org.uk/events/
Here’s some of the highlights taken from the page.
Sunday 28th June from 2pm | Our Anniversary Luxury Afternoon Tea at Repton School
derbyshirechildrensholidaycentre.beaconforms.com/...
Tuesday 7th July to 12th July | The ‘Who Knew?’ walking tour with Stuart Boon and Xavier Andrews.
www.justgiving.com/page/stuart-boon
Monday 12th October from 7pm until 11pm | The Himalayan Gurkha restaurant, 80 Macklin Street, Derby, DE1 1LF.
derbyshirechildrensholidaycentre.beaconforms.com/...
Thanks to everyone at St. George's Catholic Voluntary Academy for helping us, and to everyone for your support, we truly do appreciate it.
Janine Marie
Simon Evans ... See MoreSee Less
0 CommentsComment on Facebook
A great meet up today with Shelley Karla from Mrs C’s Tea Cosy in Littleover.
Following our last engagement where Shelley kindly offered to host one of the Derbyshire Children's Holiday Centre’s collection tins, today we discussed an array of topics around our charity.
As a result we were gifted two raffle prizes for our next event; two tickets for breakfasts for 2 people at the cafe, which is great news.
We also had the opportunity to talk about events that we have lined up in the next few months. I’m including them here with the relevant links in case anyone would like to join us and/or sponsor us so we can continue to provide holidays for disadvantaged children between 6 to 11 years old in Skegness.
Our events page is here dchc.org.uk/events/
Here’s some of the highlights taken from the page.
Sunday 28th June from 2pm | Our Anniversary Luxury Afternoon Tea at Repton School
derbyshirechildrensholidaycentre.beaconforms.com/form/e8e531e3
Tuesday 7th July to 12th July | The ‘Who Knew?’ walking tour with Stuart Boon and Xavier Andrews.
www.justgiving.com/page/stuart-boon
Monday 12th October from 7pm until 11pm | The Himalayan Gurkha restaurant, 80 Macklin Street, Derby, DE1 1LF.
derbyshirechildrensholidaycentre.beaconforms.com/form/b41703e8
Thank you everyone for your support and to Shelley and Mrs C’s Tea Cosy for providing us with raffle prizes; we truly do appreciate it.
Janine Marie
Simon Evans ... See MoreSee Less
1 CommentComment on Facebook
Was lovely to see you again ☺️ look forward to supporting further in the future too xx
Photos from Chevin Golf Club's post ... See MoreSee Less
1 CommentComment on Facebook
Chevin Golf Club - what a great day for a game of golf. Hope it goes well and thank you once again for supporting us at the Derbyshire Children's Holiday Centre.
Derbyshire Children's Holiday Centre are cock-a-hoop to be able to announce that starting on Tuesday 7th July and completing on 11th July our charity have 'The ‘Who Knew?’ walking tour with Stuart Boon and Xavier Andrews.
Following their successful walk last year from Derby to Blackpool, they have developed a new plan whilst working with me to raise further funds for the Derbyshire Children's Holiday Centre (DCHC).
Both Xavier and Stuart are passionate about the charity which has meant so much to Stuart since he was a child.
Their aim with the ‘Who Knew Walk’ is to raise awareness of the numerous Derbyshire towns where the charity engages with disadvantaged children and who are able to enjoy a holiday at our home in Skegness.
The walk will take them from
Day 1. Glossop to Buxton via Chapel en le Frith;
Day 2. Buxton to Chesterfield via Bakewell;
Day 3. Chesterfield to Belper via Alfreton;
Day 4. Belper to Derby via Kilburn, Heanor and Spondon
Day 5. Final leg from Derby to Swadlincote via Melbourne and Ticknall.
A total of 102 miles; the same distance that the DCHC in Skegness is from Derby.
We hope you’ll be able to support them in their mission to raise £2000. Their JustGiving page is provided below.
www.justgiving.com/page/stuart-boon
Barbara Anne Hastings-Asatourian
@followers
The Needles Pub
The Nags Head
Becky Measures
Himalayan Gurkha Restaurant (Derby)
Skegness Standard
Derbyshire Live
Nadine Peatfield
Mastroianni Ice’s
Janine Marie
LEAD I.T Services
Cosy
Jonathan Charles Smale
Catherine Atkinson ... See MoreSee Less
0 CommentsComment on Facebook
📰 We're in the news! 📰
Lovely to see news of our 135th year anniversary service at Derby Cathedral make a nice colourful page in today's Derby Telegraph.
And we've had some further coverage of our service in Charity Today - it's great to see our news celebrated in the local community.
#charity #fundraising #happynews ... See MoreSee Less
2 CommentsComment on Facebook
Fabulous ✔️