22 organisations across North Wales celebrate National Lottery grants to support their communities.

A total of £319,101 National Lottery money has been shared out between 22 community groups and organisations in the north this month. Amongst the groups celebrating the news that their grant applications were successful are:

• The Venture Wrexham Ltd – offering specialist play sessions for children and young people with neurodevelopmental conditions
• Hope House Children’s Hospices – supporting families of children with palliative/complex care needs
• Maes y Pant/Hollowfield Action Group Limited – creating a forest adventure trail for families to connect with nature
• Ysgol Gymuned Bryngwran – creating an outdoor sheltered area for the school and wider community to gather and socialise.

The Venture Wrexham Ltd successfully applied for a grant of £9,900 to provide specialist play sessions for children and young people with neurodevelopmental conditions to combat isolation due to Covid-19.

Becky, a parent who attends the play sessions, said, “Being able to come to The Venture has brought my daughter on leaps and bounds. She’s told me herself that, for the first time, she doesn’t “feel like a freak”. Usually, she won’t go anywhere without being by my side. At The Venture she leaps out of the car and enters the playground confidently, eager to play and meet her friends. Receiving the news that the project was continuing, thanks to funding from the National Lottery, has made our year! Being able to come to The Venture, no matter what else is going on in her life, provides a great sense of security.”

Siôn Edwards, Communications Manager at The Venture explains more about the project: “The Play Inclusion Project has been an absolute game-changer for The Venture and the funding from The National Lottery Community Fund has meant we can extend our commitment to these wonderful children and young people for an entire year of play. During that time, we will use the stability and continuity this affords to not only develop the play sessions but also to explore additional and complementary provision, during the week, which can focus on the life skills and social opportunities the children and young people tell us they want to see.

“We’re also very excited to enable the parents/carers to establish a weekly peer-support group, around the fire, at The Venture. Using a play-work approach and our renowned adventure playground to address inequalities has been nothing short of transformational, both for these children and young people and for us as a children’s centre. We are in no doubt that the foundations we lay today will lead to a more prosperous future for everyone involved. It is nothing short of a privilege to be a part of it!”

Hope House Children’s Hospices have received £81,363 to support families of children with palliative and complex care needs. The project will provide emotional and practical support to enhance the quality of life for the whole family.

Karen Wright, Director of Care at Tŷ Gobaith and Hope House Children’s Hospices, said: “We are delighted the National Lottery is supporting us to develop Key Working with our Wrexham and Flintshire families. Providing a hospice Key Worker to be a single point of contact, who knows our seriously ill children and their families well and can provide both practical and emotional support, is vital for the wellbeing of those in our care.”

Maes y Pant/Hollowfield Action Group Limited (MyPAG) in Wrexham are also celebrating their grant of £9,738 to create a Forest Adventure Trail to attract more families to the site to connect with nature.

Ian Happs, Chair of MyPAG, said, “We’re delighted that MyPAG has been awarded a grant from The National Lottery Community Fund for our new play area. The award will allow us to buy and install the play equipment we’ve planned for and we would like to say a very big ‘thank you’ to everyone who has been involved.”

Meanwhile in Denbighshire, Lamb’s Garden Enterprise Ltd will provide nature studies activities for long term hospital in-patients with its grant of £9,977, to aid their recovery and improve health and wellbeing.

Elizabeth Anderson, a Dementia Support Worker, told us more about the project:
“Grow4it delivers a person-centred, individual hour of escapism for patients. Being in hospital means that elderly patients have limited access to the outdoors. A lot of these patients adore their gardens and embrace being outside. Having Grow4it coming in to discuss various topics brings the outside inside, or it will make an individual fall in love with the great outdoors again. It’s very hard to describe their faces and how much these sessions are well-loved. Patients are uplifted and eager to tell their fellow patients in the ward what they have learnt.”

Age Connects North Wales Central will use £53,480 to set up a social enterprise service to older people in Conwy, to enable them to access support and/or activities of their choice that will maintain their independence and autonomy.

Tony Latham, Chair of Trustees, said, “We are delighted that The National Lottery Community Fund has decided to award us funding to support our social enterprise, Home Life. It is a very timely award as we start to emerge from Covid-19 restrictions and people rely on our support to enable them to continue to live independently. The funding will make a great difference to a charity such as ours, enabling us to develop our work in the county of Conwy.”

Vision Enhancement Services will support the mental health and wellbeing of vision impaired people affected by Covid-19 across north Wales with its £9,393.

Gary Twigg, Wellbeing Co-ordinator, said: “The funding will help to deliver a vital service to blind and partially sighted people at a time when mental health has come under increased strain due to the pandemic. Covid-19 has been challenging for everyone, but it has been particularly difficult and isolating for people with sight loss detrimentally affecting their health and wellbeing.”

In Angelsey, Ysgol Gymuned Bryngwran will use £10,000 to create an outdoor sheltered area, which will allow the school and the wider community to gather and socialise together.

Dwynwen Llwyd Powell, Head of Ysgol Gymuned Bryngwran, said: “We truly appreciate this opportunity to start on our plans to transform the outside area at the school and to make it a community hub where we can fulfil the aspirations of the children and school stakeholders. It’s a very exciting time for us as a school and for the wider community.”

Neuadd y Plwyf Llannefydd in Conwy will modernise and refurbish the village hall with its £10,000.

Nia Roberts, the hall’s Secretary said, “This grant from the National Lottery is gratefully received after nearly seven years of organising events and activities to raise funds, as well as applying for various grants. The Village Hall is the heart of the community and is widely used by the local school, Young Farmers Club and to hold the yearly pantomime.”

Ruth Bates, Head of Communications at The National Lottery Community Fund in Wales, said: “These projects are excellent examples of how community groups and volunteers support the people who rely on them. National Lottery players raise £36 million each week for good causes throughout the UK. Last year we funded over 8,000 projects across the UK to bring communities together, over 7,500 supporting health and wellbeing. I hope this grant will enable the projects receiving funding this month to continue offering support to the people and communities who really need it, letting them continue to change lives.”