Woking Community Fund
The Woking Community Fund is a fund specifically for the benefit of Woking and its residents established in partnership with Rutland Woking Ltd. This local company is leading by example by donating 10% of its profits to the fund but is also encouraging others to engage in local giving to develop a greater capacity to respond to local needs.
The Woking Community Fund supports local community and voluntary groups who are making a difference to the quality of local community life by awarding grants to fund their work. The Fund enables and encourages local giving to support local communities to develop and thrive by supporting voluntary effort, not just for a single cause, but across all sectors including; isolated older people, those affected by long term illness and disability, the environment, sport and recreation, young people, families and community facilities.
The Woking Community Fund makes it easy for local residents to support the breadth of local needs by:
- Exclusively supporting local community projects
- Pooling donations from companies, individuals and families to make a bigger impact
- Providing a sustainable source of funding to support the evolving community needs
- Developing the capacity to respond to local issues as they arise
Example grants from the fund:
The Woking Community Fund has recently awarded £17,000 to support project in the local community:
Catalyst – Shifa (£5,000)
Funding towards the staff costs of a project supporting women from ethnic minority backgrounds with health and wellbeing.
Emmaus Transformation Trust Limited – Nurture Project (£5,000)
Funding is towards staff costs for Emmaus Transformation Trust’s Nurture Project for women in Woking facing hardship, helping them to become more resilient, to make friends and gain self-esteem.
LinkAble Woking – Life Skills Plus (£7,000)
Funding for a project providing life skills and learning opportunities for adults with learning disabilities to improve wellbeing.
Other projects supported include:
True Honour – £2,000
True Honour delivers training and awareness on crimes such as domestic violence, female Genital mutilation, forced marriage and honour based violence. The charity’s mission is to engage with Police and other agencies to gauge a better understanding of victims, to meet the needs of all communities, by providing awareness-raising activities on hidden abuse, and to support them in a safe and empowering way.
This grant will help with the continuation of the women’s support group at the Woking Children’s Centre and to run workshops for women who attend as they have been through domestic abuse. The charity will run keep fit classes for the women to encourage both positive mental and physical well being, as well as provide the charity’s volunteer to complete a counselling course to support victims further.
Bright Shadows – £7,178
Bright Shadow’s mission is to enable people with dementia and those affected by it to live well and to thrive. Creativity and performance are used to create means and opportunities for people with dementia to express themselves, interact with others and take part in meaningful activity.
This grant helped support the charity’s ‘Zest’ workshops and programmes for people living with dementia and their carer’s, in care settings and the community. Bright Shadow also deliver training for care staff and activity workers, produce resources to enable those working with people with dementia to deliver meaningful and creative activities, and deliver creative public awareness raising events.
