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.

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.

The group is based in Concord CE Centre and has approx. 70-80 members. The group is based in Concord CE Centre and has approx. 70-80 members. The money will be used for the running of the group. Volunteer training, food for the pantry, expenses, activities, uniforms and team building activities.

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.

We are based in Dalmuir at Golden friendships club. We have 500 + members. Our weekly activities include Arts and crafts, Drama, karaoke, Dinner clubs, Bingo clubs, Entertainment, Dancing, Singing. We also have a campaign tackling loneliness and are currently planning outdoor activities and bus trips. Gardening is one of our newest activities.We will use the money to make our new gardening plot accessible. For all. We want to make it wheelchair friendly put in raised bed and other necessary requirements to make gardening available to all. The funds will benefit the members and we will also use some of the money towards our outdoor activities where we will need to travel. 

We run our Scout activities from the Scout Hall, Old Kilpatrick. We currently have 82 members within the group.The weekly meetings are structured to allow time for play and learning new skills through organised and approved badge work. If we were successful in our application, we would like to replace the current Xpelair fan heaters with a Mitsubishi Heavy Industry 10KW R32 multi-split air conditioner unit. This unit uses lower GWP refrigerant. Therefore, this new unit would substantially reduce our energy consumption, provide a cleaner air source as well as cutting our carbon footprint. In addition to the use by the whole of the Scout Group the facility is also used by other community groups including, a local theatre group, toddler's music group and a ballroom dancing group.

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.

Working in schools, colleges and other organisations we work alongside young people the Autistic Spectrum who may not fit the We aren’t school, we aren’t church, we are somewhere in between.  We can help individuals, parents and those who work and live around folk on the Spectrum and if we can’t help we will point people in the direction of those that can. We will use the funding for Developing and paying for our website so people can access help and ideas, travel, equipment and getting this activity of the ground properly. This will benefit Individuals and their parents, as well as organisations such as schools, Churches and all those working with folk on the Spectrum.  Examples of our work can be found on our website.

We are a newly formed Parent Council. We represent the entire parent forum of Dumbarton Academy, and seek to improve educational and social experiences for all pupils at the school. We are committed to reducing inequity and in promoting recovery from the pandemic through opportunities to improve the Health and Wellbeing of our young people. We will establish a Sports Clothing bank within Dumbarton Academy, thus widening access to sports and wellbeing activities for young people and ensuring equity of opportunity. We don’t want any young people to miss out on health and wellbeing opportunities due to cost. The 605 pupils at Dumbarton Academy will benefit. 

We are a parent council of approximately 15 members supporting 350 pupils within the school. We do this by meeting regularly with school senior leaders to discuss school issues and ways the parent council can support the school.  We do regular fundraising that helps to supplement school funds, which are used to enhance the children’s educational experience.   Fundraising is done through events such as Christmas and spring fairs, bounce-a-thons, sponsored walks.  The money will be used to purchase Chromebooks for Knoxland Primary School. This will benefit all children, teaching and support staff within the school environment, giving them access to a wider range of resources and digitally enabled lessons.