Stronger North Stonehouse has handed out almost £42,000 of grants from its Community Sparks fund.
Stronger North Stonehouse, which last year was granted over £500,000 from the Home Office’s Safer Street fund, is delivering a series of infrastructure and community improvement projects – Community Sparks being one of them. The people of North Stonehouse responded magnificently when asked to come up with ideas activities and projects which help make their community a stronger, safer and better place to live. The scheme received 30 funding applications ranging from £150 to the maximum of £3,000.
All applications were assessed by a panel made up of members of the Safer Stonehouse Board and independent judges. The panel was asked to make recommendations based on the merit of the potential impact they could have in the community.
“The number and quality of applications was astounding,” said Wendy Hart, director of Nudge Community Builders who has administered the Community Sparks project.
“The panel were set quite stringent parameters to work within, but the bids were so strong the vast majority past the threshold.
“As a result, the £20,000 budget needed to be doubled to accommodate them all and in total we have awarded £41,904 in grants. To help as many projects as we can we have been able to re-direct some underspent funds from other parts of the project and increase the initial £20,000 budget for the Sparks Fund.
“As these projects have all to be delivered before the end of March, North Stonehouse will be a hive of activity for the next few months and the impact on the community will be very visible, very quickly. It is an exciting time.”
Organisations and projects which received the maximum £3,000 grant included Snapdragons, Inner City Seeds, Claremont St Community Room, Friends of Victoria Park, Green Boxes, Rhythm City, Generous Earth, Conscious Sisters, Exim Dance , Wonderzoo and The Kitsugi Project.
Smaller awards were made to Community Composting; Wantage Gardens make-over; Patna Park equipment and activities; Exeter St Clean-up; Winter Wanderland; Mindful Art Club Melbourne Place Clean-up; Fotonow; St Peter’s Church; Online Family Dance Classes; Fashion Fix; Friends of Wyndham Square – Keep Talking; and Omnium Radio.
To find out more about the work of Stronger North Stonehouse visit strongernorthstonehouse.co.uk
