Lewisham Volunteer Police Cadets are a group of 170+ young people aged between 10 and 19 years old who live, go to school or work within Lewisham borough.

Every year the cadets give up thousands of hours of their own time to help their local community.

Activities they carry out range from conducting garden clear ups for the elderly, delivering crime prevention information to residents, stewarding and assisting with local events such as phoenix housing open day at Forster Park and Peoples days at Mountsfield park. All of this is done off their own backs and unpaid.

This year we have been invited to attend the Southeastern Law Enforcement Explorer Academy in Mississippi, USA.

To gain a place on the trips the cadets who have been chosen have had to prove their commitment in helping their local community and have had to apply to take part.

Due to the high costs and the difficulty in fundraising as we are not a register charity we have to limit the trip to 10 cadets so any help that can be given is appreciated

For some this will be a once in a lifetime chance for them to travel outside of the UK and visit the US

This is a fantastic program that has been running since the 80's originally set up by Alfred Sexton from the Gulfport Police Department.

Cadets from Lewisham VPC (then 4 area cadets) first attended in 1999.

Due to funding restraints the Metropolitan Police are no longer able to help fund or part fund this trip for our cadets. We would like our cadets to take part this year so we are fund raising as with no funding the total amount is payable by any cadet who applies to attend.

All the money raised from the fundraising will be going towards the cadets tickets as the staff are paying their own way.