Member Article

A gust of support helps Bellingham children’s centre

North Tynies Children’s Centre has benefitted from a windfall, thanks to support from the Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland.

The child care provider, based in Bellingham, received a combined award of £3,126 from the Bellingham Fund and the EDF Energy Renewables Green Rigg Wind Farm Community Benefit Fund at the Community Foundation. North Tynies offers a range of services for children with their mothers, fathers or carers. The grant will help the Centre to update their IT and data systems to meet Ofsted requirements and keep parents up to date with their child’s development.

Jenni Holland, Children’s Centre Manager at North Tynies Children’s Centre said:

“North Tynies is delighted to receive funding towards new IT equipment and a digital recording system so we can better track and record children’s progress and development. Previously we used a manual paper system with outdated IT that did not have the capacity to record the level of information necessary for parents and Government funders. We’re really grateful for the support of the Community Foundation, and EDF for helping us to provide a better service for families in Bellingham.” The EDF Energy Renewables Green Rigg Wind Farm Community Benefit Fund is looking for more projects to support, and is open again until 1 June 2016. Awards are typically in the region of £250 to £5,000, with £9,000 available in special circumstances. The Fund supports community and voluntary groups, schools or other such organisations based within ten miles of the Green Rigg Windfarm.

Karen Daglish, Principal Advisor for Community Programmes at the Community Foundation said:

“We’re delighted to announce that the EDF Energy Green Rigg Community Benefit Fund is open again for applications. The Fund can support the purchase of capital items that will have a long lasting benefit on the community such as that of North Tynies, or funds can support community trips and events or start-up costs for new groups. We’re also interested in supporting projects which work in the fields of biodiversity and habitat conservation, energy conservation and increased use of renewables.” Linda Harrison, Asset Manager at EDF Energy Renewables said:

“The Community Benefit Fund was set up to help support initiatives in the local community and ensure that residents benefit directly from EDF’s operations in Green Rigg, and we’re delighted to support such a great scheme. In our last round in March awarded £11,519 to support local residents. We believe passionately about the communities in which we operate and look forward to supporting further causes in the community.”

The EDF Energy Renewables Green Rigg Wind Farm Community Benefit Fund is open for applications until 1 June 2016. For more information and to apply visit www.communityfoundation.org.uk/apply.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Adam Lopardo .