KCOM community grant shortlist revealed

The good causes picked include a group that provides disabled access to the countryside, one that hosts exercise classes for the elderly, a club that helps a deaf choir hit the high notes and a school that aims to teach youngsters about healthy eating in its own allotment.

All six charities will now go through to the public voting stage of the scheme with the three groups that earn the most votes receiving a grant of up to £1,000.

Brendon Smurthwaite, KCOM’s community co-ordinator, said: “Once again, we’ve been blown away by the quality of entries for our quarterly community grants scheme. There are so many brilliant groups out there doing fantastic work to make life better in Hull and East Yorkshire.

“It was an incredibly difficult decision to whittle down the dozens of entries to just six, but the shortlisted groups all made a big impact on our judging panel with their inspiring applications. We now hope that as many of their supporters as possible will take the time to vote and help win much needed funds.”

This is the second round of KCOM grants that have been decided by a public vote. The first round of grants earlier this year was a huge success, attracting dozens of entries and more than 1,600 votes from members of the public.

The six latest finalists include Woodland Primary School, which wants to create an allotment and cooking classes to inspire youngsters to eat healthily; Football Club Esperanza which hopes to use the grant to buy new goalposts and pay for FA coaching for its growing youth teams and Hessle Road Network, which will spend the money providing exercise clubs for older west Hull residents.

Also in the running are Mires Beck Nursery, which wants help to buy an all-terrain wheelchair to give disabled people better access to the countryside; Hull Visual Choir, which wants to use the funds to travel to an international singing festival in Jersey and Newland St John’s CE Academy which would like to buy some educational robots to teach youngsters about programming.

Karen Hall, of Mires Beck Nursery, said: “We’re delighted to have been shortlisted for the KCOM community grant. We have a wonderful horticultural environment where people can experience the important work the charity offers our service users in an open rural setting.

“We want the inspirational people within our teams who require wheelchair assistance to have equal access to the site, to experience the conservation areas we are developing for natural habitats and future educational projects. Thank you for your support to help us acquire the equipment we need to make this happen.’’

Sarah Regan, of Hull & East Yorkshire Centre for the Deaf, said the grant would make a real difference to her choir members.

She said: “The Hull Visual Choir’s aim is not only to bring the deaf and hearing worlds a little closer together but to share the beautiful language of British Sign Language (BSL).

“We are a mixture of hearing and deaf sign language users and - with a little artistic license and a lot of BSL and passion - we bring the magic of song to the deaf and the beauty of BSL to the hearing.

“We spread empowerment, inclusivity, awareness and joy, and we frequently move people to tears and inspire those who feel they don’t have a ‘voice’ to sing. A vote for us would be gratefully appreciated.”

Nicola Johnson, of Football Club Esperanza, said: “It means such a great deal to us as a club and we are just so thrilled to be shortlisted and to have the opportunity to be awarded with a grant.

“The amount of hard work and dedication that Esperanza players put into training and games week after week is amazing. Every member of our football family is greatly supportive of the club and its values.

“Along with Wes, our main coach and Esperanza founder, many parent volunteers give up their free time every week to enhance the development and healthy lifestyle mentality of each of our players.

“It would be amazing to enable us to further develop this by qualifying two new parents with FA coaching courses and increase the amount of quality coaching that the children have access to. It would also enable us to purchase two much needed steel frame goals.”

Joanne Atkinson, of Hessle Road Network, appealed for the area’s residents to get online to vote.

She said: “We’re so excited about being in the next stage and hope that all you lovely voters can see how much benefit being able to run a weekly free exercise class will be for the local community.

“We have a community committee, and we asked them what they would like to do, weekly, fun and inclusive exercise came out top, getting people out and about, chatting and making new friends.

“Please vote for us and our energetic community, thank you.”  

For more details and to vote for your chosen charity visit www.kcomhome.com/communitygrants/