MELKSHAM Free Dining received an extra ‘helping’ of funding at last week’s Melksham Area Board meeting.
Their grant request for £1,700 was bumped up to £2,500 at the request of one councillor, who was full of praise for the service after experiencing their work first-hand.
“This is not just about feeding people, this is about real community,” said cllr Jonathon Seed. “I sat next to one elderly lady who told me that it’s the only time in the week she goes out to have a hot meal, and apart from Sundays at church, it’s the only time she sits down and talks to people. Melksham Free Dining is much more than giving a free meal.”
The charity, which offers a free lunch to locals every Wednesday at Bowerhill Village Hall, had asked the area board for the £1,700 grant to help with the ongoing costs of the initiative and their ambition to expand the service to two days a week. Councillors unanimously agreed with cllr Seed’s proposal and agreed to grant Melksham Free Dining £2,500.
In response, trustees Louisa Lewis and Deedee Macleod told Melksham News, “We were amazed by the encouragement shown to us and very thankful for the generosity of the area board in awarding Melksham Free Dining an amount in excess of our application. This will enable us to continue with this much-appreciated local charity.”
A total of eight grants were awarded at the Melksham Area Board meeting amounting to £20,105. The Friends of Shurnhold Fields, the group of volunteers responsible for looking after and developing Melksham’s ‘mini country park’, was given £750 to help towards the replenishment of its WW1 commemorative wood.
The group explained that some of the 200 trees planted in 2018, to commemorate the fallen soldiers of World War One from the Melksham area, have not survived and are to be replaced with more mature trees that have been nurtured in a nursery, looked after by volunteers from the group. Children’s charity Spurgeons, which operates the children’s centre at Canberra, was awarded two grants. £1,000 was given to help create a community garden behind the Canberra Children’s Centre; and £500 to help them offer support to parents whose children are receiving help from 4Youth’s ‘Teen Talk’ counselling sessions at Canberra.
Spurgeons said in their application, “The garden will be a focal point for community members to create, work together and meet new people, with a focus on supporting children to learn more about nature and the outdoors, promoting positive mental and physical healthy activities.”
About the support they hope to give parents, Spurgeons added, “This will be a 6-week group parenting course for up to 10 parents of the children who are having counselling to ensure that they have basic strategies to support their children through the difficulties that they are going through.”
Melksham Amateur Swimming Club was given £750 for ‘vital swim teacher training’. They said, “We require suitably qualified swimming teachers and assistants to run our sessions. We lost several due to the pandemic and we will be losing a few more in September when they go to university. We urgently need to fund the training for new volunteers in order to keep our sessions running.” 4Youth South West (formerly known as Young Melksham) was given £4,855 to re-open the open access Seniors Youth Club on Thursday evenings, from 6.30pm till 9pm, for young people aged 13-19.
Their application said, “The club will provide a place where young people can go and meet young people and mix with others with a mixed of activities such as cooking, arts and crafts, guest visits and sports. These activities will be delivered alongside informal educational issue-based provision and support that address a wide range of topics that affect young people.” £2,750 was allocated for a young carers event in the autumn to “thank you” for their important work.
The money will be added to the £2,750 already ringfenced by the area board for the event. The additional funding will help pay for agency staff to relieve the young carers of their duties to allow them to attend the event.
Finally, Bowerhill Scout Group was given £7,000 to help purchase a new minibus for their ‘Scout and About’ initiative.
