Great news, Community project funding for C.A.R.E.
It’s always great to see a project go from strength to strength. In this case, I’m pleased to report that we have now received confirmation that yet another funder, Herefordshire Community Foundations IRON Fund has agreed to support the amazing work of C.A.R.E. Herefordshire CIC. The new £4,995 grant will help C.A.R.E expand their work by covering the cost of key new youth work staff and vital equipment needed to deliver much-needed youth provision for the Golden Valley. This will include a new weekly teen cafe and a kids club, both of which will run for at least the next twelve months. Both projects will commence by spring 2020.
Of course, the new youth provision does not represent the limit of the awards benefit. New digital projection equipment provided via the grant will be fitted in the hub/cafe and this will bring an exciting new dimension to C.A.R.E.s lunch clubs and other services for older and more isolated people, many of who live with long term health conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. For example, the new equipment will let C.A.R.E. play a wide range of nostalgic footage that has been proven to trigger conversation and other interaction through positive reminiscence and have a positive impact on cognitive function.
The new equipment also opens up the possibility for C.A.R.E. to offer occasional community movie nights and similar events to bring local people of all ages together to socialise and enjoy a wide range of films.
A key part of securing this grant was our ability to respond quickly to a new funding opportunity. This meant we are able to prepare the bid very quickly whilst also ensuring that a strong case was still made. Critical to this was our design and delivery of a simple community survey to establish what youth provision already existed and how this was used/viewed by the community.
Now that the required community project funding is secure our role will not stop. as part of the services, CARE have asked us to provide we will continue to support them with a wide range of activity required to deliver this exciting project including staff recruitment and the procurement of the new equipment. On top of this, we will keep a close eye out on the horizon for further funding opportunities where we feel it is possible to help C.A.R.E. take further steps towards their goal of making the Golden Valley the best possible place for everyone who lives there.
This will be the fifth new source of community project funding we have been able to help C.A.R.E. secure in the last 12 months and brings the total value of funding we have secured for them to date up to around £90,000.
It’s easy to forget the potentially transformative value that small grants and other small scale community project funding this can have. Especially when scope exists to combine two or more grants into a series of interlinked projects as we have done for C.A.R.E.
Once all of the projects are up and running C.A.R.E.s overall activity level and with this, their impact will have enormously grown. The last 12 months have already seen C.A.R.E. move from strength to strength taking them from a small but important local CIC with limited employees to a significant local employer providing vital and highly valued services to the whole of its community. This growing success also creates a strong platform for C.A.R.E.s further growth and increases the opportunities to secure further and potentially larger grants in the future.