A restaurant waiter is helping students with their GCSEs with an education project - using £8,000 he saved in tips.

Junior Saunders, 39, saved money left to him over three years to pay for a wellbeing and careers show aimed at supporting young people.

The money collected by the dad-of-five waiter at Miller and Carter in Bristol launched GCSE Boost

- a motivational event to help kids through their exams.

More 2,000 young people and hundreds of parents and carers attended the two day event which saw them given careers advice by potential employers.

Now he wants to move the idea forward and regulate it across the country - even if he still needs to resource to his tips from the restaurant.

Junior said: "I'm grateful that I was actually able to do GCSE Boost by actually being a waiter and save my tips here. "

"It is a credit to the people who have enjoyed my services as a waiter but actually not understanding underneath the surface that I had a grand plan for where my tips where going."

"Of course I still have got to put down my kitchen floor and some doors in my house. There were things I could have done with that eight grand that I made but this was the priority because if I can save one person's life through mental health and their exams than I know I have done something right."

Thirteen years prior to GCSE Boost was launched Junior did motivational workshops within schools.

"That was really about how learners could become the best version of themselves," explained Junior."

But the need to fund GCSE Boost came after lockdown where students mental health sky rocketed and interpersonal skills were lapsed.

He said: "2019 was the original premise of when I set up GCSE Boost as an idea. "

"The reason I set it up at that time is because I saw the need for mental health services but also the approach of employers."

He spent most of his life in foster care and didn't have a strong educational experience while growing up.

He experienced many difficulties, such as living with ADHD and dyslexia whilst also tackling setbacks as a child in care in Bristol in the 1990s.

Now Junior wants to help students despite all the setbacks he faced.

He explained: "Because I was brought up in care my educational experience was varied - I didn't have structure within my education journey. "

''What I had was live skills - resilience, confidence and self-believe installed in me throughout being brought up in care.

"As I became an adult I tried to fit in into conventional ways of earning employment and I didn't get the gist of being like everyone else - I knew that there was something about me that was very different. "

"As we came out of lockdown there was an 80 per cent increase in mental health in Year 11 students specifically going into their exams - at that point I knew I had to do something with this idea."

But for Junior to move forward with this project he felt it was right to be 'self-reliant' and start funding GCSE Boost from his sweat and tears.

He explained: "I can't be advocating to students about self-believe, perseverance, resilience and confidence without being the by-product of everything that I'm talking about."

"At that point I decided to start saving from my card tips £200 a month for three years and I started building Boost."

GCSE boost saw nearly 2,000 students at Aerospace Bristol - with Junior adding that the feedback was "amazing"."

He said: "The advantaged that I had was getting the trust from schools - getting 1,500 students out."

"Through the £8,000 I managed to get the venue donated very kindly by Aerospace Bristol, the stage, the travel and GCSE Boost was born."

"This is something now that I know that I've tried and it works that I want to regulate all throughout the country because we have a duty as professionals to allow those students to become the best version of themselves."

"A student said that her mum had just passed away. She had no idea how she was going to get through the exams. But after my event she feels like she can - that to me is the power of not only a belief in yourself but that's the power of the need. If you do something different there is always a risk that may not work, but that one comment made everything worth it to me."

Junior's dream is to see GCSE Boost events being run in every city in the country but particularly in smaller towns.

He said: "Mental health is actually on the increase even more in subdued towns. If we can bring an energetic, powerful career show in those areas as well as the cities than actually we are creating a movement that it is going to make a real difference to those young people's lives."

"Also a A-Level Boost throughout the country - that is very important to what I want to do. It's continuing the relationship of those learners who go to GCSE Boost then onto A-Level Boost."

"I want employers to believe in the product of GCSE Boost and making careers happen. Offer real opportunities during and after the event."

When asked if he will still rely on the tips from Miller and Carter to move forward with the project he said: "If I have to by any means necessary. If I have to be the example through my tips to show that there is a need for this to show that we have to change the way opportunities are presented to people leaving school in the country then the waiter is going to do it."

Junior is looking for big and small employers to make a difference to thousands of students of Year 11 students across the south West by being able to recruit for job opportunities.

To visit GCSE Boost check the website here: https://www.gcse-boost.co.uk/