The grants have been given from our Community Fund and this year £30,000 has been made available to support the work people, charities and voluntary groups do in local communities. 

The latest projects to receive grants include:

• Home-Start Oxford: £2,500 towards their free family wellbeing groups in Witney which connect parents and children to their communities and peers while offering invaluable advice to those needing support or signposting.
  
  
• Oxfordshire Youth: £2,450 towards the charity’s Young Leaders Programme, offering seven young people the chance to take part for free and potentially gain a Level 2 Award in Leadership and Team Skills.
  
  
• Got2B: £2,300 for this community interest company that has supported young people in West Oxfordshire.
  
  
• Dogs for Good: £2,275 to help fund the charity’s specially designed Family Dog Workshops, which provide parents of autistic children with advice for choosing and training a dog to benefit the whole family.
  
  
• West Oxon Boxing and Fitness Club: £2,120 towards running holiday and after school clubs across West Oxfordshire.
  
  
• Burford Town Council Playground Committee: £2,035 to help update the playground at Burford Recreation Ground, including sensory and tactile equipment, for a mix of ages and abilities, and an area of all-weather surfacing.
  
  
• Leafield Pre-school: £2,000 towards a community cabin which will provide a safe and quiet space for key workers to support children who need sensory input or therapy away from the busy areas within the pre-school.
  
  
• Oxfordshire Play Association (OPA): £1,720 to support a series of play and activity days for children and their families at multiple venues across the county. These were free to attend and also provided information on services and activities available in the local and wider area.
  
  
• Farmability: a small Oxfordshire-based charity which supports local adults with learning disabilities to become co-farmers on four working farms across the county. Farmability were given £1,665 so they could promote the work they do at the Willowbrook Festival in Kidlington enabling them to better connect with local communities.
  
  
• Carterton Carnival: £1,400 towards the town’s free family event which included a funfair, attractions, crafts and other stalls and an evening of live music from local bands and singers.

Our customers are asked to vote via social media for projects that apply to the Community Fund. They are asked which ones they would like to support and have a say on the amount of funding that is awarded.

Hayley Reynolds at Oxfordshire Youth said: “Thanks to the funding we received from Cottsway Community Fund, we were able to offer seven young people fully funded places on our Young Leaders Programme which took place during October half term.

“Through the programme young people undertake an accredited leadership qualification that pushes them out of their comfort zone, allows them to meet new people and have loads of fun. The young people all threw themselves into the various activities at the residential and will be meeting again later in November to complete their logbooks. It’s so great to see young people pushing themselves and learning new skills they will be able to use in the future.”

Our Community Fund is also available to support our customers who wish to learn new skills and increase job prospects. Grants of up to £250 are available to help pay for training and coaching courses, qualifications and learning support materials.

Lorna Jones, our Community Investment Officer, said: “Our Community Fund can help make a real difference both to the communities where we work and to our customers’ futures, so it’s fantastic that we’ve already been able to support so many varied projects and objectives this year!”

These projects and people are the latest to receive funding from this year’s Cottsway Community Fund. To find out more, and how to apply, see: Community Fund

Pictured: Participants taking part in a problem-solving exercise at the Young Leaders Programme residential weekend, held in October.