SIX Scottish charities will receive a share of £50,000 funding generated from the sale of single-use carrier bags.
Scotmid’s Community Connect initiative lets members vote for good cause groups in their local areas with up to £15,000 awarded to the winning group.
Every member in both the West and North regions were given a Community Connect card and each time they shopped in a Scotmid store and scanned their card they were allocated one vote which they could then cast at the regional AGMs.
Glasgow charity Street Connect and Inverness-based Highland Cycle Ability Centre won the top awards of £15,000 funding in the West and North regions, following a ballot at the society’s AGMs in Bellshill and Dundee.
Street Connect supports disadvantaged individuals dealing with addiction problems and related life-controlling issues such as mental health, homelessness and isolation.
Volunteers at its Outreach Cafe offer information on the range of services available which includes rehabilitation support – the £15,000 funding will go towards refurbishing the building.
Street Connect’s co-founder Julie McAddock, said: “Winning the £15,000 funding through Scotmid’s Community Connect is absolutely brilliant and will go a long way towards helping us to achieve our goals. We plan to use the funding for the refurbishment of our Outreach Cafe, which is badly in need of a revamp, where we support vulnerable people who have drug and alcohol addiction problems, particularly those who are homeless, in the centre of Glasgow.”
Highland Cycle Ability Centre provides a cycling service aimed predominately at youngsters and young adults with physical or learning disabilities. The charity now plans to use the Community Connect funding to support the extension of an outreach programme over the next two years – taking the track to young people, who will benefit from the service.
Chair, Joanna McGregor said: “We are reliant on community donations for ninety per cent of our funding and so this award will make a wonderful difference to the youngsters with disabilities who we serve and engage with.
“This funding will help us to push out our outreach programme in the community. The main recipients will be the young people we serve and now with this Community Connect funding we can make everybody involved happier, fitter and feel more included.”
Scotmid’s chief executive, John Brodie, said: “Congratulations to all of the successful charities awarded funding in the latest round of our Community Connect initiative. The outcome was decided by the votes cast by our members and it is great to be able to award all the short-listed groups with funding to enable them to continue the good work that they do. Our core purpose is to serve our communities and improve people’s everyday lives, so it is very pleasing to see Community Connect continue to develop into an extremely worthwhile initiative.”
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