Where we came from

Supported by Rotary In 1989, John Moores, who was the founder of the Littlewoods Organisation, developed an event which he called “The Liverpool Annual Motorists Outing for Disabled Children.” This was organised by staff at their head office in Liverpool. At a board meeting just after the outing, a director asked why such an event was not held in other parts of the country, bearing in mind that all main towns had a Littlewoods store at that time. Further discussion concluded that stores alone would not have the resource to organise such an event and would have to link in with some other organisation that would be suitable partners.

Lady Grantchester, daughter of Sir John Moores, suggested Rotary in Kingston where she lived and was asked to make contact. She spoke to Rotarian Peter Jarvis, and subsequently arranged for him to go and have lunch with the then Littlewoods Chief Executive. A deal was struck whereby Littlewoods provided funds of £1,000 and the Kingston Rotary Club and Kingston Littlewoods store organised an outing. If successful, Littlewoods committed to support a rollout throughout the country.

Peter coined the name “KidsOut” and devised a logo. The event, which was held in June 1990, was deemed a great success and Littlewoods honoured their promise to support the rollout very generously. Soon there were outings across the country.

In time, the Moores family sold Littlewoods and the link with KidsOut was lost. In 1999, KidsOut was registered as a charity and Rotarian Peter Jarvis became one of the founding trustees. We’re proud to say that Peter still serves on the board today as Treasurer.

Today, KidsOut is a very different organisation delivering many different services across the UK but we are of course very proud of our heritage.

If you would like to find out more about the services that KidsOut offer please visit the 'What We Do' page or watch our latest DVD.

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