Golden Friendships is a community-focused charity supporting youngsters, people with additional support needs, disabled people and the elderly. We bring everyone together at the Golden Friendships Community Hall in Dalmuir to reduce loneliness, reduce isolation and improve social inclusion and wellbeing. We operate out of the Golden Freindships Hall in Dalmuir, where we run a number of events and services. Our main aim is to look after the more vulnerable in our society through group activities, entertainment and social settings like lunch clubs. We regularly talk to our members to find out how they are and what they need. One of our focuses is tackling loneliness in the community. We are providing activities to try and help peoples mental health such as our weekly walking group, we have a plot in Dalmuir for gardening projects, we have regular bus outing and activity trips.

We wish to use the Community Grants to refurbish our stock room as it has not been touched since we bought the building. The floor is uneven and needs to be redone. All old wiring needs ripped out and secure shelving and storage space needs to be put in. The ceiling has to be replaced and new lighting required. It is a large space that runs off our café bar and is used regularly. 

Clyde Shopmobility are a locally run charity who deliver a mobility scooter, manual and powered wheelchair service to residents of West Dunbartonshire and surrounding areas to get around Clyde Shopping Centre.  

The funds will allow us to purchase 2 bariatric mobility scooters so that some of our service users feel more comfortable while using our equipment to get around the Clyde Shopping Centre to shop, meet up with friends or just get a coffee. We are looking to replace our larger mobility scooters which are now 11 years old with 2 new larger ones.

The West Dunbartonshire Amateur Swimming Club (WDASC) has been in existence for over 100 years. It’s a parent led, not-for-profit organisation that develops the skills of West Dunbartonshire’s young people by participating in club swimming. WDASC is all about increasing the opportunities for our young people. Through club swimming, our young people develop life skills that will inherently improve their personal growth. 

We intend to purchase equipment that will upgrade the capabilities of the local swimming pools in West Dunbartonshire.  Thanks to the support of our local Leisure Trust, we operate out of the Clydebank Leisure Centre & ‘Vale of Leven’ pools. This new equipment will allow our pools to host ‘accredited’ swimming competitions in our community for the first time in 40 years. Currently our young athletes can only travel outside of our community to participate in swimming competitions. This comes with a financial cost to parents & carers that can sometimes, sadly, exclude our young people. 

Hosting competitions not only for our own young athletes, but also those from outside of our community, will help generate much needed income that can subsidise the costs charged to parents from the West Dunbartonshire’s Lesure Trust. 

Through community fundraising we are close to achieving our goal. A successful application to the ‘small grants’ fund will allow us to achieve our goal by summer 2024