Powerhouse Grants for 2022 Announced
In its first year of grant-giving, The Didcot Powerhouse Fund will be making grants totalling £95,508 to 17 organisations, with grants ranging from £400 to £13,000.
90% of the beneficiaries of grants live in the Area of Influence of Didcot Garden Town, encompassing Didcot and the local villages and the theme this year was ‘Supporting children, young people, and families as we emerge from the pandemic’.
Successful Grant Recipients for 2022 can be viewed here.
Elizabeth Paris, Interim Chair and Deputy Lieutenant, Oxfordshire said “The volume and quality of grant applications the Fund received was extraordinary, giving the Grants Panel an incredibly difficult task in deciding how to allocate funds. Submissions highlighted the incredible work that so many local people, volunteers as well as charities, are doing to support the local community. The Fund received 31 applications, requesting a total of £232,000 in grants.”
Local MP for Didcot and Wantage, David Johnston said “The Didcot Powerhouse Fund is a great addition to the local community, and I’m delighted to see so many local organisations being awarded grants in its first round of funding, grants that will enable these organisations to achieve even more. The Fund has hit the ground running in its mission to support Didcot and I encourage individuals, businesses, churches, and other community bodies to donate to it if they can, so it can support many more community bodies in 2023.”
Successful grant activities ranged from the provision of wellbeing, mental and physical health initiatives for young people, to education including reading and maths assistance. Young carers will receive additional support and there will be more help and advice for parents who are breastfeeding, as well as a boost for parent-infant therapy. During the school holidays, disadvantaged families will have the opportunity to visit the Didcot Railway Centre, with a meal included, and there will be more baby and toddler sessions over this period too.
Sabiene North, CEO of Be Free Young Carers said “Our grant will enable us to provide local schools with a professionally produced video and toolkit, as well as 1:1 emotional support sessions for our most vulnerable young people who undertake a caring role in their family.”
Kathryn Goldsby-West, Chair of Didcot Baby Mondays, said “This grant will make such a difference to our parents, enabling us to increase our capacity for breast-feeding support, introduce a variety of new activities and extend our contact with more diverse and harder to reach families.”
Patron of The Didcot Powerhouse Fund, Lord Vaizey of Didcot said “Corporate donations represent the greater percentage of The Didcot Powerhouse Fund to date, but it’s Important that we all take an active role in fundraising. Running the London Marathon last year was a huge personal challenge for me but was also incredibly rewarding, knowing that each step would be raising money for the Powerhouse Fund.”
Oxfordshire Community Foundation administer the Fund and Didcot First host it, helping promote Didcot positively.