Haddington & District Council Food and Clothing Grant Initiative – In Conjunction with The Bridge Centre Haddington And The Haddington And Lammermuir Area Partnership
In August 2020 along with funding secured from the Haddington & Lammermuir Area Partnership, the Haddington & District Community Council began their Food grant initiative.
We started the initiative with professionals and agencies working with individuals and families, and quickly realised that there was a need not only for emergency food payments for families in need, but also for clothing payments.
Thanks to further generous donations from two members of the public, HDCC began advertising the clothing initiative alongside the food grants.
Professionals or agencies working with people in need are asked to complete a referral form and then return it to the Haddington & District Community Council Resilience Team where the referral is then considered.
If the request is successful the amount awarded is then forwarded to the person making the referral.
Any grant awarded cannot be spent on alcohol or tobacco. So we have stipulated that the referrer collect receipts from the individual or family and return them to the Community Council to show the money is spent on its intended purpose.
The “professional” can be a schoolteacher, a support teacher, a doctor, health visitor or Social Worker and associated agencies.
In the last four months, 32 families have been helped with over 100 adults and children making up these families.
The grants we have awarded have ranged from £30 up to £160.
Grants awarded up until December amounted to £1708 for food and £2276 for clothing. A total of £3984. The Community Council have had referrals from four different agencies working with families in the area, two schools and from Health Visitors. All referrals are kept strictly confidential, and the Members of the Community Council have no contact with the individuals or families receiving the grants.
A spokesperson for the Community Council said :
“Four months ago we knew there was a need for this project, but we never envisaged the demand we have experienced in the last few weeks. We were starting to run low on funds, but thanks to a generous donation made to The Bridge Centre from another organisation that was winding down in Haddington, we will have enough to tide us over the holiday period, we can’t thank them enough for this.
We hope that in 2021 we can secure further funding to keep this project going, we have to, people need this.
Staff from The Bridge Centre, Our Community Kitchen, the Haddington And Lammermuir Area Partnership (HLAP) and members of the public have helped make a difference to all these people in Haddington in the lead up to Christmas.
We will be there to help if anyone needs emergency help over the Christmas period and into 2021.
The Community Council in conjunction with The Bridge Centre and Our Community Kitchen have also made-up food hampers and emergency food parcels for families in need in the week running up to Christmas.
A referral form can be found at our Funding and Grants Page