Sessions at the horticulture project at Knowetop form part of the recovery programme offered by Alternatives to clients in its community-based and residential programmes. Our Into Nature programme of afterschool and school holiday sessions, runs from March to October and there is a range of outdoor activities, storytelling, and nature inspired art and crafts. We also work with schools, and to date 108 children from the 2 local primaries have taken part in our schools programme. This funding will be used to develop and deliver a programme of outdoor activities at Knowetop for 11 to 18 year olds, providing young people with opportunities to experience nature and take part in workshops to learn new practical skills. This project is aimed at young people between 11 and 18 years old from anywhere across West Dunbartonshire. Our programme to date has focused more on younger children, and we’ve identified a gap in our provision for this age group.

Our Social Group brings together autistic people (aged 18-35) from across West Dunbartonshire. The group reduces social isolation among autistic people living locally, and supports them to become more active in the community. Our Social Group is run by a specialist support worker and 3 volunteers. The grant would cover the costs of the staff involved, plus a range of social group activities. This will benefit up to 15 autistic people aged between 18 – 35 years who live in West Dunbartonshire.

We are a foodbank serving West Dunbartonshire, our main office is based in Dumbarton. We provide support to children and families affected by poverty and food insecurity in West Dunbartonshire.  We will use this funding to continue to buy food stock for the foodbank and continue our community soup project.

We are a Youth Football team based in Clydebank, part of the Clydebank FC set up. We have 19 boys who currently play with the team and 3 coaches.  We train two nights a week and play games on a Saturday.  We have been together since the boys were 5 years old and are now in our 9th year together as a team.  We will use this money in the current climate and cost of living crisis we will cover the monthly fees that the families have to pay each month to the club £30 each player. As we have 19 boys this will cover 9 months of fees.  This will benefit the families and boys in the team.

Haldane Youth services is a grassroots community project.                    

Happy Minds project would like to develop and encourage our children and young people's emotional and physical wellbeing by participating in a plethora of activities and events throughout the year.These activities will empower children and young people to have their say regarding mental health and wellbeing, participate in group sessions and provide them with transferable skills. This will allow the members to boost their confidence and self-esteem, enable them to build their own toolkit with the necessary steps to understand, manage and cope with mental health and wellbeing issues. Enabling young people to move from adolescence to adulthood. Most of these sessions will take place within our building on a weekly basis throughout the year.This will benefit our current. . We will also encourage parents and friends from the local community to volunteer with our projects, providing training where required, hopefully building on their mental health and wellbeing

At Mini Messy Monsters we provide messy and sensory place for all children as children with ASN could come and the parents could relax due to there being no “structure” to messy and sensory play so children were not seen as being “naught and disruptive” !. We hope in the near future to put on more days during the week also, the best thing about class is that we are accessible for all children and families in particular who have more than one child have somewhere they can take all their  children at the same time, classes are normally for the dreaded terms “asn children” or “mainstream children” and at our classes we do not believing in separating children and all children should play together! The problem is unfortunately there is not many places that are accessible for all children. Our numbers vary each session but we can take up to 40 children per session. The monies will be spent on buying accessible Messy and sensory equipment for all children, along with helping us to provide our new Makaton song and story class and accessible dance class for all children.

We have 56 members we are based in antonine sports centre Duntocher and hub ce centre clydebank  we provide football training and games for kids 6 to 60 we play in pan disability league or aim is to get kids out and play football meeting new friends. The funding will be used for Training equipment hall hire and transport to games. 

We are a social enterprise engaging people in West Dunbartonshire with the arts. We are passionate about breaking down barriers, or perceived barriers, to participation. We work in areas of deprivation and with people with additional support needs. We will run a number of trips for young people aged 3-25 to see professional theatre/performance. Young people aged 3-25 from throughout West Dunbartonshire will benefit from the project. Our aim is to have 100 people attend the theatre as a part of this project. 

Bags Full of Love is a charity operating in West Dunbartonshire for children in Foster & kinship care. We provide children coming in to care with a backpack filled with new essential items and clothing so that the carer does not have to rush out shopping and can spend quality time getting to know the child in their care, this also gives the child a chance to settle in their new home and have new items just for them which gives comfort on probably the worst day of their lives. The money will be used for buying stock for our bags and for as each bag costs between £70-£100 depending on the childs age.  Last year we distributed 45 bags to children in West Dunbartonshire.

Ben View Resource Centre is a charity based in Dumbarton. A weekly group for young people aged 8-15, providing a variety of sports and physical exercise. We will also be educating young people on the importance of physical movement for mental health. We will be offering a variety in the hope that each young person finds a sport which they enjoy and will continue out with the group.