Here are the awards made by the grants committee at their meeting in July 2021.
The Communities Looking Forward grants programme was introduced in January 2021 to focus on helping local sports clubs, community groups and charities rebuild after the fallout from COVID-19. The funding stream offers groups up to £10,000 (unless there are exceptional circumstances) and works collaboratively with the recipients.
During 2021 the Grant Programme has awarded £74,172 in grants to local charities and community groups, including this latest round given in July:
- £3,000 granted to Young Arcadians to help with their production costs for Guys n Dolls in February 2022. Young people have been badly affected over the past 15 months with a combination of home learning and clubs stopping or being paused. Being able to provide a grant to compensate for the effects of the pandemic and enable the Young Arcadians to work towards and perform Guys n Dolls in February 2022 felt appropriate given the past 15 months.
- £2,000 to Red Kite to help towards providing counselling and group sessions for their clients who have been raped or sexually abused. An area that has been highlighted as under resourced through our work with the family support team in Letchworth schools.
- £3,264 will enable Made With Clay to purchase new equipment and run a series of community workshops. Creating additional capacity for the ceramics group ties in with the Broadway Studio and Gallery’s desire to incorporate ceramics into their outreach and community work.
- Open Art Box requested £6,480 to help implement new art workshops for people living with dementia and their carers. At present regular community based activities for residents with early onset dementia is quite limited, granting funding to pump prime this project will hopefully lead to it being established longer term.
- Letchworth Garden City Eagles were awarded £5,000 towards the overall costs of a new covered stand. Part funding the stand is a way we can show our commitment to supporting community sport and enable the club to continue to advance its ambitions on the pitch.
- £2,000 granted to Let’s Make Lunch for food provision and craft activities for school families through the summer holidays. It has been well documented how challenging it can be for families on low incomes during the school holidays. Providing funding to enable these sessions to take place will hopefully alleviate some of these challenges for around 50 families in the town.
The last deadline for applications for 2021 is Friday 24 September, applications will be brought to the committee meeting scheduled for October 22, 2021. Find out more about the Grants Committee here.
