Pre-Christmas boost for communities in Wales

Christmas is just around the corner and 58 projects in Wales have successfully applied to The National Lottery Community Fund for a share £726,070.

This month The National Lottery Community Fund in Wales’ grants have

• helped a farming community maximise the income from welsh mountain fleeces
• funded a beautiful garden in Cardiff Hospital especially for long stay patients recovering from spinal injury,
• supported a group helping people qualify for work in the construction industry

and

• helped some of Santa’s elves in Ruthin.

Pentredwr Community Association in Denbighshire successfully applied for a grant of £71,927 through the Rural Futures fund. This project will train people in and around Pentredwr to process their own fleeces to make marketable products. The two year project will be delivered in in partnership with Gwlangollen CIC.

Ticky Lowe, a committee member at Pentredwr explained:“The project will be important to the future of the village, as a farming community this brings an opportunity to explore possible uses of the low grade welsh mountain fleece produced locally.Pentredwr Community Centre will serve as an ideal venue to experiment with different applications for the wool such as for fertiliser, as insulation, to line hanging baskets, as slug matting and also for crafts such as woven rugs, spinning into yarn and felt making. The grant will also fund wifi for the community centre which was something that everyone wanted. We are all looking forward to being able to plan events, workshops and get togethers including a busy calendar of wool related events as soon as it is possible again!”

Horatio’s Garden are a charity determined to provide a place of peace and tranquillity for people recovering from life changing spinal injury to go while they are in hospital – often for very long stays. The garden will be part of the new, spinal injuries department at Llandough Hospital, the only specialist unit in Wales. The £60,000 grant will help to pay for the creation of the garden, a Head Gardener and a Garden Therapist. They will recruit a team of local volunteers to maintain the garden and provide a programme of events such as art sessions, book club, music, patient and family lunches.

Kathryn Furnell, Marketing Manager at Horatio’s Garden told us

“We have been lucky enough to secure Sarah Price an award-winning Welsh garden designer who has had a prestigious career. She is renowned for her artistic, naturalistic planting style. The garden will be so valuable to the patients, it means so much to them to have the opportunity to get outside and engaged while they are undergoing such protracted rehabilitation. I have seen people at other sites leaving to go home with armfuls of plants that they have grown during their stay. This has been a very difficult year for fundraising, but thanks to this grant we have been able to go ahead with the garden at the new site here in Wales.”

Welsh Centre for Action on Dependency and Addiction Ltd in Swansea will provide Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) cards to unemployed people, giving them the opportunity to gain new skills to help obtain employment in the construction industry. £6,960 will fund training fees, IT and travel expenses.

Victoria Thomas, project manager said

“Thanks to National Lottery players Cyfle Cymru are training in Constructions Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) cards, which is a common requirement for roles in the labouring, construction and manufacturing industry. This is something we would have never been able to offer our service users in the past and now the opportunity to support someone into this type of employment as part of our project service delivery has increased tenfold!”

Colin Richards was supported by Cyfle Cymru, completed the accredited courses, then volunteer training and volunteer hours and is now fully employed on the project as a peer mentor. He added

“I can hardly believe how Cyfle Cymru has changed my life. Having always worked in the catering profession, I joined the organisation as a volunteer and several months later became a fully-fledged Peer Mentor. I can honestly say that I have never enjoyed a job so much. From delivering training to doing CV's and everything in between my confidence and skill set has soared. I am truly proud to be a member of such a tremendously helpful, talented, and inspirational team—we all care very much, not only about the project but about each other and this is something for which I am truly grateful.”

Finally, getting everyone into the festive spirit The National Lottery Community Fund has helped save Christmas for the Ruthin Panto Society who could not get their usual fundraising off the ground. Every year for eight years they have put on a panto with subsidised tickets. This year they were unable to get the funding together within the strictures of lockdown. The National Lottery Community Fund has stepped into the breach to provide a grant of £5,007 and you can see how happy the elves are in this video . David Snape, Treasurer explained how the video came about

“Over 100 local people volunteer with the panto every year. The wonderful local businesses usually support us, for example with raffle prizes. This year they are struggling like everyone else, usually we do a bit of panto during the Christmas Lights switch on in Ruthin and it helps bring people in but of course this year there is no event. We decided to use the video to give something back to the businesses who help us out every year.”

Ruth Bates Interim Director Wales for The National Lottery Community Fund said

“These groups are all working so hard to ensure their communities thrive during these difficult times. Thanks to National Lottery players we are proud to be able to fund them and look forward to hearing how the communities will benefit from these projects.”

National Lottery players raise £30 million each week for good causes throughout the UK. These are just some of the projects that The National Lottery Community Fund has supported, you can read the full list here.