Surviving Winter Fund awards £17,000 to support individuals in need
The Surviving Winter Campaign has awarded more than £17,000 this winter to 19 community groups working with people in severe need across Cornwall. Kirsty Philpott, Grants Manager says, “The groups that apply for this funding are working with some of the most vulnerable people in their communities. The funding is allocated by the groups as very small awards that help individual people keep warm or feed themselves.”
The Wild Young Parents’ Project (WILD) that operates 10 groups across the county for young mums, dads and their children providing whole family services, has received a grant award of £1,000. 19 young women have benefited with essential funding towards warm clothing, slow cookers, electric, gas, duvets and pillows. In total the £1,000 grant supported 52 beneficiaries, including 22 children under 5 years old.
Alison Richmond of WILD commented, “Surviving Winter is such a valuable fund and it achieves so much. I cannot say how grateful the WILD Young Parents Project and the families we work with are. One young mother who lives alone with her six month old baby and does not have very much disposable income was awarded funding for some bedding and sleepsuits for her baby daughter. This has enabled Mum to ensure her daughter is both warm and safe at night.”
Another project to receive funding is Cornwall Rural Community Foundation (CRCC) who have run energy advice sessions through the Cornwall Winter Wellbeing programme. With their £1,000 grant CRCC were able to support 40 beneficiaries through 18 grants. The largest award was £90 towards gas central heating for a family of 5 (all 3 children with learning disabilities and mother struggling with Raynauds disease. The smallest and most frequent award was £20 towards electricity top-up.
The other groups benefiting from the fund during the winter of 2018-19 are Community Energy Plus, Cornwall Independent Poverty Forum, Cornwall Refuge Trust, CAB Liskeard, EFGI Cornwall Aid Centre, Inclusion Cornwall, Liskeard & South East Cornwall Breather’s group, Liskeard Community Action, Livewest Homes Cornwall, Mind Restormel Association for Mental Health, Oceans Foodbank (Bude), Pentreath Limited, Penwith Over Fifties Forum, Penryn and Falmouth Foodbank, St Austell Community Kitchen, St Martins Church (Liskeard) and Wadebridge Foodbank and Storehouse.
Jeremy Ward, CCF Development Director, comments, “CCF is very grateful indeed for the continuing generosity of our Friends and supporters that make the Surviving Winter Fund possible. Our feedback and figures consistently show that small grants targeted to key community organisations helps so many individual people, reaching out into the community to those who really do need it most.”