Strong Foundations Grant recipients in Cumbria

In 2020, we launched the Strong Foundations Grant, aimed at supporting small charities and community organisations in and around our sites and offices. Each of these projects provide opportunities for local people and drive positive change where it’s most needed.

Last year, our Infrastructure team selected nine projects based in Cumbria. Here’s a little more about these projects.  

• Tubby FC was founded in June 2021 after an initial idea by one of its members for a football team/project for men who are either of a certain BMI (Body Mass Index) and/or suffering with mental health issues. The funding provided will enable the team to offer more people access to the members football training sessions per week and attend/play in the matches organised by the charity with other organisations.  
   
• The Community Centre in Red Lonning is a safe space for local people to visit. The support provided will go towards the creation of a community garden. The garden will be an inclusive and fully accessible space. The team will plant fruit and vegetables that can be used to create healthy nourishing meals. Teaching life skills such as gardening and cooking and showing how starting small, with just seeds, can result in great things.  
   
• Phoenix Enterprise Centre (PEC) was established in 1985 to address economic deprivation in West Cumbria through promoting economic regeneration and helping people into employment. The funding provided will enable the team to pay for a condition report on a building they intend to turn in to a local community pantry.  
   
• Growing Well, West Cumbria is a registered mental health charity supporting adults in Cumbria and North Lancashire through therapeutic horticulture. The team intend to transform a disused horticultural nursery in Egremont town centre. Once in use it will provide the vegetables for the 100 weekly veg boxes sold locally. Service users will be supported through their recovery with training that will empower them to work on the site.  
   
• Egremont RUFC runs junior rugby club for children from the age of 6-17 with a newly formed girls’ team and an open age team with 30 plus players. The club is very inclusive and coaches’ people with varying abilities and fitness. With funding it will be able to purchase kit and equipment for it’s newly formed girls’ team Egremont Valkyries. This will improve the overall experience for the girls and foster their development and skills.  
   
• Home to Work was set up to meet the needs of the rising number of unemployed people in Copeland. It exists to relieve poverty, provide training/work experience with the aim of getting people back into work. Our funding will go towards the provision of an extensive 1.6-acre therapeutic garden. Beneficiaries of the project, Goodlives, will be able to get involved in the care and maintenance pf the garden including the growing of food for local people. Each person will be assessed and receive a plan of support around the garden that works for them.  

• Time to Change, West Cumbria is a community interest company, or CIC, with the aim of tackling homelessness and poverty in West Cumbria. The solutions needed to prevent homelessness are long-term, but an interim solution is needed. The funding provided will go towards the purchase of emergency packs including tents and sleeping bags that can be given to the most vulnerable people while they wait for more permanent support.  
   
• The team behind Keekle Village Hall set up the charity in 2017 and since then having been using the hall, which was at risk of closure, as a space to support local people. The hall is the only local indoor venue in a semi-rural area with poor public transport, so users - particularly the elderly and families - are reliant on using their own cars. The support provided will enable the team to improve the currently very limited parking area including the excavating of grounds and laying gravel to increase parking area, installing drainage, replacing damaged concrete area and providing hard standing area for disabled parking. 
   
• Citizens Advice Allerdale provides free information and advice on a range of issues to people to help them find a way forward. Funding will be used to expand the housing advice provided meaning that more people will be able to access the exact support they need. This service is desperately required since more people are struggle with spiralling living costs and high rents.