Lottery award harmonising generations in Cornwall

Area:

South West England

Programme:

Reaching Communities

Release date:

20 2 2007

Another award for Cornwall will build a new dining room at the Hayle Day Care Centre, as £400,000 in total grants for projects in the South West is announced today.

Professional arts workers will lead people of different generations through joint workshops of singing, dance, gentle exercise and other creative pursuits in the Music and Dance Education Trust’s Hear Me Too project. About 240 people – half elderly and half younger people – will take part in the workshops that will be held in care homes and local community buildings in Penwith and Kerrier.

Pat Hickman, Artistic Consultant to the Music and Dance Education Trust, said: “We’re so pleased to have been given this award to develop and extend our intergenerational work across West Cornwall. The arts are a really powerful tool and engage people emotionally, physically, psychologically and spiritually. Bringing together young and older people provides so many opportunities for sharing creative skills and reminiscing. The different age groups can become so much more aware and understanding of each other and the contexts in which they live.

“Some our most humbling experiences have taken place in care homes and day care centres. The music and dance often triggers a distant memory, and the older clients also love having visits from the children and young people and sharing their life stories and experiences. It’s living history. The first intergenerational project we ran was in 1997 and I’ll never forget one gentleman well into his eighties, Maurice, singing Nat King Cole’s “When I fall in love it will be for ever” - everyone was spellbound.”

Meanwhile in Hayle, a day care centre will have more space to dish up affordable hot lunches to elderly people thanks to a £50,000 grant that will double the size of its dining room. The Hayle Day Care Centre serves affordable hot meals to up to 80 people a day that gather not just for the nutritional food but also for the opportunity to meet friends. However, the 25-year-old centre needs extra space to accommodate this number of people, which includes many who need walking frames and wheelchairs. The service is the only one of its type in the immediate area and demand is expected to rise because of the continuing surge of retirees to the West Country. More than 160 older people attend the centre to meet, take therapies and use its bathing facilities. The oldest attendee is 103.

Big Lottery Fund Head of South West England Mark Cotton said: “I’m delighted for the projects announced today, which will meet the needs of the growing population of older people in Cornwall in different ways. Harnessing memories and sharing them with different generations will be a great way of bringing people together and sharing years of experience. Building a new dining room at the Hayle Day Care Centre will enhance the lunch crowd’s size and comfort. These initiatives are just a few of the ways the Reaching Communities programme is bringing changes to the lives of many people in Cornwall.”

In other grants for the South West, a bereavement service in Ottery St Mary, Devon, will expand thanks to a £30,276 award to the Ottery St Mary District Help Scheme. The Chittlehamholt, Warkleigh and Satterleigh Parish Council has been granted £10,300 towards buying a new multi-purpose climbing frame in Chittlehamholt, Devon. The Weston-super-Mare & District Credit Union has been awarded £185,000 to expand its services across North Somerset.

The Reaching Communities programme delivers grants of up to £500,000 over five years to schemes that offer people better chances in life, build strong communities, improve urban and rural environments and promote healthy activities.

Further information

Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours contact: 07867 500 572
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102030
Textphone: 0845 6021 659
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Notes to Editors

• The Big Lottery Fund rolls out close to £2 million in Lottery good cause money every 24 hours, which together with other Lottery distributors means that across the UK most people are within a few miles of a Lottery-funded project.
• The Big Lottery Fund, the largest of the National Lottery good cause distributors, has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since its inception in June 2004.
• On 1 December 2006 the Big Lottery Fund was officially established by Parliament and at the same time assumed the residual responsibilities of the dissolved National Lottery Charities Board (Community Fund) the New Opportunities Fund, and the Millennium Commission. The Fund is building on the experience and best practice of the merged bodies to simplify funding in those areas where they overlap and to ensure Lottery funding provides the best possible value for money.
• Reaching Communities is part of the Big Lottery Fund’s portfolio of new programmes. Following an intense and comprehensive process of consultation with stakeholders and the general public over the last year, the Fund has undertaken to distribute 60-70% of its funding to the third sector.  At least one-third of BIG funding will be demand-led and lightly prescribed.  In England, this will amount to at least £600 million over the period 2005-2009. This commitment will be met from a variety of funding streams, including, Reaching Communities, Awards for All, part of the Young People’s Fund, Community Buildings, Advice Services and the People’s Millions.
• UK-wide, the Big Lottery Fund will distribute through its new programmes and allocations funding worth over £2.6bn between now and April 2009. Regularly updated information on the Big Lottery Fund’s new programmes is available at www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/publications.htm

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