Tesco to launch £5mn grant programme for schools, & other funding news
Melanie May | 6 April 2023 | News
The Tesco grant programme will open this summer, through Groundwork. Elsewhere, more funding is available for community fridges, and through Benefact Group’s Movement for Good Awards.
Tesco announces £5mn grant programme to boost school funds for extra food & activities
Tesco will launch its £5 million grant programme this summer, aiming to help thousands of school children across the UK.
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In the first year 5,300 schools will be able to apply for support. The scheme, supported by Groundwork, will replace the current Tesco Community Grants funding programme. It will focus on providing schools lacking funds and resources with extra financial help to provide healthy food and activities that boost young people’s mental and physical wellbeing.
Schools will be able to apply via Groundwork for a grant of up to £1,500. Successful applications will go to a customer vote in their local Tesco store.
The initiative will also be boosted by Tesco’s ‘Golden Grants’ events, which saw it give away £1mn last year to mark reaching £100mn worth of grants awarded to local communities through the Tesco Community Grants Fund. In 23/24, Tesco will award 200 £5,000 ‘Golden Grants’ to schools and local projects.
Since its Community Grants programme launched in 2015, Tesco has awarded over £100mn in funding to more than 50,000 community projects, with grant awards decided by 700,000 votes cast by Tesco customers in stores across the UK.
To find out more or to apply, visit the apply for a grant page.
More funding for community fridges through Hubbub & Starbucks
Environmental charity Hubbub is broadening the impact of the Community Fridge Network, through food hub funding which will help local residents to learn new food and growing skills and connect with their neighbours.
Last year, with support from the Rothschild Foundation, Hubbub piloted food hubs at 14 community fridges. Following the pilot, 50 more community fridges were awarded food hub funding with support from Co-op and the Starbucks Foundation.
Starbucks has now committed £350,000 of funding, which will be made available to a further 50 community fridges across the UK. The grants are being supported by the Starbucks® 5p cup charge which is applied when a customer chooses to use a single-use cup. Starbucks has donated all funds to Hubbub to support stronger, greener communities.
Starbucks will support the development of 50 food projects over the coming months across the following themes:
- Skills – To give the community an opportunity to up-skill and learn about sustainable, affordable, and heathy living through workshops, events, cookbooks, or how-to-guides.
- Affordable food – To help fridge visitors discover new ways to increase access to local and affordable food through food cooperatives, food box schemes or food markets.
- Community Connection – To provide opportunity for communities to come together around shared food through community meals, coffee and chats, youth activities, and recipe shares.
- Growing – To support community growing and increase the amount of edible food grown and shared locally through community gardens, greening projects and seed or plant sharing.
The funding is available to community fridges that are already open and running. Community fridge groups can apply for funding now via the Hubbub website.
Benefact Group launches the Movement for Good Awards 2023
People can once more nominate a good cause to receive £1,000 as part of Benefact Group’s Movement for Good Awards.
Now in its fifth year, the Movement for Good Awards will again see more than £1million gifted to charities up and down the UK and Ireland.
Since the awards began, people have submitted 1.75million nominations and more than 2,000 charities have benefited from donations. The Movement for Goods Awards has given over £4 million since the initiative started.
Winners will be drawn at random and the more times a charity is nominated the more chance it has of being selected.
150 winning charities will be announced from 1 June, with a further 150 revealed in September. Further gifts will be awarded throughout the year.
STV Children’s Appeal distributes £500,000 since December 2022
Over 100 Scottish charities have received a grant from the STV Children’s Appeal in response to the cost-of-living crisis, with families receiving direct assistance around food, clothing and energy costs. From December to March, £500,000 of funding was distributed to local and national charities that support children and families affected by poverty across Scotland.
Funds raised during activities such as the Big Scottish Breakfast, the STV Appeal Cup and viewers’ donations during the STV Children’s Appeal Show have contributed towards the grants issued.
Scotland-wide charity Aberlour received a £200,000 grant for their urgent assistance fund. Chief Executive SallyAnn Kelly OBE said:
“Aberlour has seen unprecedented levels of applications to our Urgent Assistance Fund due to the cost-of-living crisis; a crisis that has been catastrophic for families across Scotland already struggling to make ends meet. This grant has enabled us to help families feed and clothe their children, heat and light their homes and even provide beds for many children.”
Hamilton-based Covey work collaboratively with families and have taken a flexible approach with the grant, enabling them to target support directly at the point of need. CEO Lee Johnstone said:
“Through person centred support, one young person has received a new bed and no longer needs to sleep on the floor, one family has received a fridge, so their food stays safe and fresh, and one teenager told us ‘I feel like someone is actually listening to me.’”
Over 240,000 children live in poverty across Scotland, which is one in four children.
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.