Somewhere to feel at home
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Beechwood Village Community Trust While Covid-19 restrictions directly affected the number of activities we were able to deliver face-to-face with local communities during 2020/21, we have been able to continue our work behind the scenes to make improvements to our services. The Beechwood Village Community Trust (BVCT) is a good example of this. The BVCT is supported by Swan to administer grants for the areas of Beechwood Village and Craylands in Basildon. Making it easier for local people and groups to access funding is a key priority for the trust and three new funding streams have been developed and are now live on the BVCT Website: www.beechwoodtrust.org.uk The ‘Give it a Go’ fund Funding is available to support local people living at Beechwood Village and Craylands to put their ideas into action. The funding helps them to get a project going in their community which will bring about positive community benefit.
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The ‘Helping Hands’ fund Funding is available to individual residents in receipt of Universal Credit and who have children, to support access to sporting, learning, and leisure activities. This could be the purchase of equipment, uniforms / kit, or the payment of subscriptions to clubs, which enables children and young people to take part in activities and develop their talents. The ‘Big Grants’ fund This fund has been established to support local groups and organisations to bring forward community initiatives which provide up to £20,000 over a two-year funding period. This fund provides a degree of certainty to those working to support people in the area and seeks to encourage other sources of sustainable funding to be secured, meaning the projects can be delivered long term.
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