Surviving Winter Crowdfund

Berkshire Community Foundation's latest round for grant applications closed on 23 January. We'll have updates in due course about awards from this round.

These grants are being used to enable groups to fund their essential resources in order to secure services for their beneficiaries through the winter.

Costs such as energy bills, heating costs and increased rent prices will be considered. Priority will be given to those groups who are supporting the very vulnerable, including:

• Babies
• Children
• Young people
• Elderly people
• Those with disabilities and life limiting illnesses

Making a difference through your donations

We teamed up with Wokingham United Charities and Berkshire Community Foundation for the Surviving Winter crowdfund.

Thanks to community donations and match funding, almost £70,000 will be going to local organisations to help people with the cost of living.

Grant awards

Two funding rounds have been awarded already.

June 2023 funding round

The first funding round saw awards in June to:

• The Cowshed - £10,000 to provide ongoing support for 250 residents with access to essential items
• First Days Children’s Charity - £5,000 to cover one day a week of a family support worker for one year. This would cover all of the work required to assess applications for beds and bedding and get beds into the homes of 300 children throughout the year
• Home Start Wokingham District - £10,000 to recruit, train and supervise volunteers to work with families with at least one child aged five or younger
• The Salvation Army Wokingham - £10,000 to help with community outreach to those dealing with homelessness, living in temporary accommodation, needing tenancy support or struggling to access benefits
• SHARE Wokingham - £5,000 for storage and packing, cleaning items and running costs to support 13 food sites, helping about 1,500 people each week
• Yeldall Manor Good Samaritan Fund - £3,000 to help men that cannot obtain funding to access residential rehabilitation for drug or alcohol addiction

December 2023 funding round

The second funding round saw awards in December to:

• Kaleidoscopic UK - £2,000 to part-fund family food hampers to support 90 people this Christmas who have been impacted by domestic abuse
• 2nd Woodley Scout Group - £900 to help with utility costs to run sessions supporting 50 young people each week
• Home Start Wokingham District  - £2,470 to support its Giving Children a Better Start project, supporting home visiting services to vulnerable families across the borough

March 2024 funding round

A third funding round in March saw awards to:

• The Woodland Centre Trust (Camp Mohawk) – £2,500 to support with running costs for its facilities, which help more than 600 families to access safe, suitable play facilities for children with additional needs
• Daisy’s Dream – £2,091.72 to cover heating costs for the charity’s new premises in Lower Earley, so it can continue to support hundreds of residents through bereavement through small group work with children, young people and families
• Hurst Bowling Club – £520 for the cost of two dehumidifiers to keep the club’s clubhouse free of mould and damp for its 500 members