Christmas has come early for 10 Kent community centres after they received a share of Southern Water‘s £30,000 regional Community Fund.
Each centre has been awarded a £1,000 grant towards its core running costs. The centres are: South Willesborough & Newtown Community Centre, Greenhithe Community Centre, All Saints Community Project, PCC of St Augustine’s, Hartlip Village Hall, The Alexander Centre CIC, Dover Big Local CIC, Newington Community Association, Sunflower House, and Thanet Community Development Trust.
Together, these community hubs support more than 8,000 people across Kent every month. They offer essential services such as food banks, bereavement support groups, fitness classes, community theatre, parent groups, dementia support, counselling sessions and free meals.
Folkestone’s Sunflower House, for example, located on Foord Road, is a vital community hub, offering health, wellbeing and development activities to around 3,000 people each month.
Its wide-ranging work includes providing small emergency grants for energy and travel, housing support through Action on Homelessness Folkestone and running sessions for those affected by domestic violence. The centre also hosts theatre performances and wellbeing groups.
The grant from Southern Water will help fund Sunflower House’s Warm Welcome initiative, a Friday morning drop-in service offering hot drinks, snacks and emergency weekend food parcels to those in need.
Sunflower House spokesman Jon O’Connor said: “With this support from Southern Water for our Sunflower House Warm Welcome community project, we’ll be able to keep our buildings warm and friendly, the kettles boiling for a cuppa, the biscuits and snacks rolling round. Most important of all, we can help all the families we love working with feel part of our family too.”
Southern Water’s Community Fund scheme is now in its third year. This year, it is giving away £30,000 to community centres across Hampshire, Kent, Sussex and the Isle of Wight.
The grant programme is part of the company’s ongoing work to support resilient communities to thrive, alongside delivering ongoing utility services in our region.
Alex Willumsen, Southern Water’s community partnerships and programme manager, said: “The huge number of applications we received illustrated the incredible amount of support and services community centres offer to thousands of people across our region.
“We’re so pleased to be able to offer a helping hand through these grants, which will help ensure they can keep up their valuable work.”
