We’ve supported some amazing organisations during COVID-19, including Lifespace Trust who have received a total of £18,075 from the Coronavirus Resilience Fund and our Doing Things Differently Fund.
Lifespace provide one to one mentoring for children and young people, helping to reduce distress and build resilience enabling them to achieve more. Due to the lockdown in March, they needed to change their usual way of mentoring by offering either phone or digital support. This was made possible after the funding they received from the Foundation.
Andrea Gardner, Business Support Manager from Lifespace, reached out to tell us how vital the funding was during such a disruptive time:
“The Doing Things Differently grant was instrumental in allowing us to continue to be there on a 1:1 basis for young people during lockdown, without it we’d have struggled to develop new ways of working.
“One of the key secondary schools in our area shared data from a survey they conducted in May which showed a huge surge in young people feeling anxious about the virus and about returning to school.
“The grant helped us to develop new ways of working; phones and the safe use of MS Teams to replace face to face mentoring. It also allowed us to fund the development of several online workshops to use with small groups of young people via MS Teams.”
Here at Heart of England we pride ourselves on creating innovative funding streams that reflect community need. Andrea continued:
“It’s imperative that grant makers respond quickly as small grassroots charities like ours do not have huge reserves to rely on when fundraising event, often scheduled for the spring and summer, as in our case, had to be cancelled . Heart of England Community Foundation was best placed to support us, as they’re a loyal supporter of our work, have seen us grow over the years and truly understand both the local issues and the work we do.”
Watch Eva’s Lifespace story:
If you’d like to apply for funding please view our Available Grants here.