Winter Wellbeing Fund

We're here to help this Winter

In response to the cost of living challenge, we're launching our Winter Wellbeing Fund to support local initiatives working to help residents in our communities.

The Winter Wellbeing Fund is open to support groups that provide food or support for hygiene or basic needs. If you’re involved in a community group, no matter how small, apply for a financial grant of up to £2,000 today.

The current funding round has now closed. Funding decisions will be announced by the middle of November.

The funding is targeted at groups that work in communities where there is a high proportion of Karbon residents and significant need. Eligible items for funding to include:

• Subsidising purchase of food where donations have fallen
• Fuel costs incurred when delivering or transporting food or hygiene provision
• Volunteer expenses
• Increasing reach of provision
• Equipment for providing community meals e.g. pots, pans, crockery
• Changes in provision:
  • Crisis food provision
  • Hygiene products
  • Household cleaning products
• Supporting costs of lunch club/ community meal provision

Eden Miners Centre in Leadgate, County Durham received £1,940 to fund its weekly Warm/Welcome hub. 

Andy Plant, Trustee at Eden Miners Centre, said: “A lot of communities are in a bit of a social limbo these days, especially for older people who are more isolated and don’t go out as much anymore.”

“We provide a welcome space for people where they can come and stay warm, charge their phones and use the computers, saving them from having the gas and electric on at home for a couple of hours. We provide hot meals, tea and biscuits and a game of bingo. Most importantly, it provides company for people.

“We’d struggle to do this without the funding. It’s really important to have smaller pots of money like the Winter Wellbeing Fund. There is bigger money out there but there’s a lot of pressure when you apply for it. It’s very useful having someone like Karbon doing small amounts of money that are reasonably accessible and you can do little bits with it and make a big difference.”

Silx Teen Bar Youth Project is the primary youth provider in Blyth, Northumberland working with young people aged 11 to 25.

Silx runs an employability project helping young people with no qualifications to find employment and is using the £2,000 funding it received to provide young people who attend this project with a meal over three sessions a week.

Chris Antony, Development Worker for the Silx Youth Project, said: “Some young people are living in poverty or are homeless and we can give them the opportunity to have something nice to eat.”

“It also helps to develop the relationships between the young people and our team. It opens up opportunities to discuss the issues they are having, whether that’s at school or at home or safeguarding.”

“We find young people lack knowledge or don’t know where to access the support, there aren’t organisations out there who provide this kind of support to them. Our sessions are drop-ins. You don’t have to be mandated to come here. You can stay as long as you want and we’ll feed you. Gradually, individuals start to get involved and want to do things. This year, 53 people have got a job which is record numbers for us.”