Jackpot joy for the people who won the Lottery for communities

If that's true then it's pretty good going and proves that despite the criticism it sometimes receives, Lottery money is making a difference

to communities up and down the land.

During the past 12 months, for instance, the Big Lottery Fund's Awards for All scheme has provided 45m in grants to social, cultural and environmental projects. In Yorkshire, alone, it has handed out 6.8m to more than 900 projects, ranging from a scheme encouraging healthier eating among families run by a primary school in Castleford, to a Normandy veterans association based in York which used the money to allow members to attend D-Day memorial events.

Vanessa White, head of the Big Lottery Fund in Yorkshire and the Humber, says the idea behind the scheme is to support local communities at a grassroots level and act as a counterbalance to the bigger, headline-grabbing projects.

"As well as providing large grants for big organisations we also wanted to make sure there were easy-to-access grants for smaller schemes

run by community groups," she says.

"We now have groups right across Yorkshire applying for funding and the good thing about it is it benefits everyone, both the young and old, from one side of the region to the other.

"For instance, we've supported out-of-school activities for kids at a primary school in Scarborough which helps out parents who are working. And in Crossgates, in Leeds, we've funded a good neighbour scheme and they used their money to create a project involving older members of the community, getting young people to talk to them and find out about their experiences in the war and what life was like back in the 1940s.

The older folk went into schools to talk about the past and the kids then produced a booklet with their stories, which is a great example of a cross-generational project bringing a community together."

The Big Lottery Fund (BIG) is the largest distributor of National Lottery money in the country and has been dishing out the cash to good causes since June 2004. The Awards for All programme is its small grants arm, providing between 300 and 10,000 for individual projects.

About 40 per cent of applications are successful, although White wants to see more coming from Leeds, Doncaster, Barnsley and Hull, which up to now have submitted fewer bids than other areas of Yorkshire.

"If you have a strong application you have a good chance of getting funding, whether it's parish councils, schools, or community

groups."

Lottery funding has been criticised in the past for channelling money towards ministerial targets as much as worthy causes, but White disagrees saying each application is considered on merit. "If there's strong evidence showing the need for a project in an area and evidence that a lot of people would benefit, then it will have a good chance of being successful."

The criteria are pretty straightforward and anyone submitting an application needs to illustrate one or more, of the following – that their project promotes a stronger

community, encourages healthier and more active lifestyles and benefits the local environment.

"People are often nervous about first-time applications and that can put some people off, which is why we offer help filling in the forms because we want to see as a wide spread of applications as possible."

Those that have benefited from the Awards for All scheme are

in no doubt about the difference it's made to ordinary people's lives. Sofia Buncy is a co-ordinator with the Huddersfield Pakistani Community Alliance, which provides a meeting place and social activities for older people.

"We find a lot of the elderly are housebound and those from south Asia often struggle with the language, especially if their children have moved out. They end up feeling isolated with little contact with the outside world," she says. "Many of them have health problems, or they are looking after partners who are ill, and they don't get any exercise. But this project helps them to meet people from similar backgrounds, it helps them become more active and it gets them out of the house."

The project, which received more than 5,000 from the Big Lottery Fund, runs groups for men and women that meet twice a week and provide everything from knitting classes to help in filling in medical forms. Buncy says it's become a lifeline to many people.

"It's very important because the old community centre

was burned down in an arson attack which meant a lot of the services, especially for the elderly, were shut off. So there really was a dire need for this and now it's helping those who need it the most."

The Badapple Theatre Company was given 10,000, which it used to commission a new play, based on the reminiscences of former members of the Women's Land Army.

It was subsequently taken on a rural tour across East and North Yorkshire. Kate Bramley, who founded the York-based theatre group, believes the scheme helps to bring people together.

"It's open to anyone, so it's not some box-ticking exercise and anything that puts the heart into a community has to be a good thing," she says.

In their case it's even led to further opportunities. "We're a small theatre company and what the Lottery money did was underwrite our

play and make the tour possible. Now we're about to take it on a 10-week national tour, so for us it's been a real springboard that's taken us on a much longer journey than we imagined."

[email protected]

n To find out more information about the Awards for All scheme, or to make an application visit www.awardsforall.org.uk