If you’re spending hours trying to find after-school activities for the little ones, a father-of-three has created the perfect solution – and it also helps out children struggling with food insecurity
A dad-of-three has come up with a genius app to help busy parents – and give back to the community.
Emanuele Palladino is a former rugby star and PR manager to a string of ace athletes – but the father has taken on a whole new career to help struggling families. Yellow Days is his new baby: a ‘Deliveroo-style app’ that shows parents which activities (such as sports teams, kids club, drama lessons etc) are nearby and how much they cost.
The idea stems from Palladino’s own frustration of spending hours searching for out-of-school activities that he could send his kids to. He even understood the struggle when running his own rugby camp business with Six Nations rugby stars including Brian O’Driscoll, Gareth Thomas, Gregor Townsend and Josh Lewsey.
“Whilst researching my competition I realised how hard it was to find exactly what else was on, so I imagined it must be hard for a parent too,” he said. “Fast forward 18 years and with three young children, I found the same problem existed as a parent this time, and so I decided to do something about it.
“I brought on board a co-founder and long-term tech business associate David Robinson, and together we decided to make it our mission to transform the way parents book activities for their children.” Yellow Days gets his name from Palladino’s son, who once drew a picture of his baby brother in yellow as he was ‘happy all over’.
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Yellow Days works just like Amazon and Deliveroo – but instead of ordering a cheeky Chinese on a Friday night – you can book your kid into their first ballet class. Parents can use filters such as distance and price to find the right activity for their little ones – and each booking parents make the company ‘will buy breakfast for a child at risk of hunger’.
“Eating breakfast helps children to concentrate at school, allowing them to enjoy learning and encouraging them to grow in confidence,” Yellow Days said. “We want to help provide children across the UK who are at risk of hunger with the most important meal of the day. Children are our future, and their creative sparks and thirst for learning need to be encouraged and nurtured.”
Bookings can be completed in ‘just two clicks’ and there is no fee for listing on the app, which takes a five per cent commission including Stripe fees at the point of booking. The app has already launched in London and SE and has national activity providers such as Barracudas and Camp Beaumont signed up. Palladino has hopes to move nationally ‘very soon’ before taking the idea global.
Yellow Days is available online and in the App Store.
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