Community groups handed grants (From Durham Times)

Community groups handed grants

11:30am Sunday 17th January 2010 in News

COMMUNITY groups in County Durham have started the new year in a positive fashion with the news that they have been awarded grants totalling more than £76,000.

Ten groups have benefited from the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards for All programme, which in total has handed out £241,000 to 30 good causes across the North East.

If U Care Share, a Chester-le-Street-based support group that works to bring together people who have lost a loved one through suicide, received £5,594 to expand its awareness-raising work into local schools.

Shincliffe Parish Council will create an outdoor meeting area for young people after receiving £6,383 and young people in the East Durham area will have the chance to learn business skills after an award of £10,000.

Sedgefield Town Council has been awarded £10,000 to transform a plot of land, formerly used by the patients of Winterton Psychiatric Hospital, into 15 allotments and a children’s sensory garden.

Young actors in Consett will soon have a place in which to get involved in drama thanks to a £9,765 grant awarded to Consett Phoenix Youth while £3,346 will enable Teesdale Disability Access Forum to create packs to keep elderly and disabled people warm this winter.

Sunnybrow Primary School in Crook will use their £1,585 award to furnish a new community room and users of the Hazelwell Centre in Easington can now press ahead with plans to enlarge the community centre’s kitchen area and loft space thanks to their grant of £9,998.

Weardale Allotment Association and Waldridge Parish Council each received £10,000 to erect much-needed security fencing on their allotment sites.