Local charity Broxburn Family Centre have been short-listed to become one of the latest recipients of funding from Scotmid Co-operative’s Community Connect initiative – potentially being awarded £15,000 in order to revitalise their playground.
Community Connect was initially trialled in the North of Scotland last year and enables Scotmid members to award good cause groups in their local area with funding of up to £15,000, generated via the sale of single use carrier bags.
Now launched in Scotmid’s East Member Region – encompassing Edinburgh, Fife and the Lothians – Broxburn Family Centre are one of three good cause groups, who have been short-listed by a Scotmid member selection panel to receive a financial award of either £15,000, £7,500 or £2,500.
The other short-listed good cause groups are South Queensferry’s Blood Bikes Scotland and Prestonpans-based Harlawhill Day Care Centre.
Scotmid members collect votes by swiping their Community Connect card after every in-store purchase and then cast their votes for their preferred good cause group at Scotmid’s Ordinary General Meeting at Murrayfield Stadium in October.
Broxburn Family Centre have supported the West Lothian community for 21 years through their Range Adventure Playground, which features indoor and outdoor play areas for children of all ages and abilities; focusing on young people who are experiencing difficulties.
The Broxburn Family Centre’s team stage extremely popular events such as the free of charge drop-in play sessions and also set health and wellbeing goals for children, who attend with the aim of giving them ‘Awesome Childhood Experiences’ in order to improve confidence, self-esteem, social skills and physical and mental health.
The Community Connect funding will go towards essential maintenance work at Broxburn Family Centre – improving the facilities available to children in the local community.
Broxburn Family Centre Chief Executive Raymond Branton said: “We’re delighted to be short-listed for Community Connect and we’re grateful to Scotmid for considering us for the funding.
“Our project is core to the wider community and this funding is going to be used for maintenance of our play facility; which is very popular and gets used by hundreds of young people free of charge every week.
“We’re reliant on generating funding ourselves and every few years the play facility requires essential maintenance – replacing and repairing – so Community Connect funding will play a big part in helping us to achieve our goals.”