As a group we hold a pantry and cafe after school hours to help our comminuty in duntocher bridge the gap of inequality and Encourage socialisation. We have brand new and used school clothing, a food pantry and a cafe where we have hot drinks, home baking and soup availible for a small donation. This is open to our community and is well used. We are looking to buy new hot water urns £90, a soup urn £60 and a slow cooker £40 as we currently borrow these items and they are not often always available together, these will cost £290 . We are also looking to buy some new storage units £100 and one more clothes rail £20. We also need two members of our voluntary group to go and achieve a food hygine course as our current members who hold these will no longer be part of our group after summer this will cost £150. We are also looking to increase our food items.

Our project will pay for an experienced Community Garden Project Worker who will

Develop the project with the support of users and volunteers, Develop a seasonal food growing strategy for the space, Organise the allocation of raised beds , Provide ongoing support to all users , Liaise with local schools/nurseries and other local groups within the community to encourage wider engagement with the project, Organise weekly onsite tasks including maintenance and upkeep, Encourage and support the development of an allotments/growing spaces committee, Research further funding opportunities to support material/resource costs and long-term sustainability of the project

We believe our project will support the local community by

Providing the opportunity and resources for local people to grow their own fruit and vegetables, Providing local school children with basic gardening knowledge, highlighting the importance of healthy eating and increasing awareness of ‘where food comes from’, The users and participants will be able to supplement their family’s diets with food produced in the community growing space, Encouraging ownership and personal responsibility , Fostering collaboration and the benefits and positivity of working together, Providing a safe and inclusive space for people to meet and socialise – therefore reducing social isolation, Promoting intergenerational engagement through allotments/growing space users being supported to deliver gardening/growing sessions with local school children, Improving the physical and mental wellbeing of those involved

Breakdown of costs

£2,400 - Cost of Community Garden Project Worker to manage project/£20 per hour x 8 hours per week x 20 weeks

£500 Food purchase

Running costs for parent and toddler group, family arts and crafts, men’s mental health, women’s walking and social group, adult ceramics and book club.

All group sessions will run for 10 to 12 weeks and hot meals will be provided for all participants.  Participation will be targeted at those most likely to experience food poverty.  (room rental, utilities, materials for classes etc.) £2000

CLYDEBANK OSPREY AMATEUR BOXING CLUB are looking to set up a dry food pantry to help the local community. This will help not only the existing club participants but also make the club welcoming to all local residents hopefully encouraging them to participate in exercise in a warm, safe comfortable enviroment.  This will lead to life long health benefits and an increased sense of community in the locals area.

Community pantry build £1200 (including food purchase)

Running costs (utilities etc)  £1300

Our funds are depleting rapidly due the current and predicted raise of utility costs and this has affected and will continue to affect the use of the Village Community Hall for our villagers as a meeting place that provides support, fun, health and wellbeing and reduce loneliness and isolation for villagers of all ages in our community and surrounding area.

The 2025 plan until June includes regular village and community meetings; Bingo night; Ceilidh night; Quiz night; Learn and Grow sessions; Drop In and Chat Group; Easter Week activities and events; a proposed Walking Group and Ukulele Group.

We have also made contact with ‘Men Matter’ as we have had interest in starting some form of Mens’ Group looking at such things as cycling and recycling, walking football/exercise in the new MUGA; Pat Testing; and enhancing our park facilities identifying skills that that can be shared to help in enhancement our village environment.

Working with WDC Greenspace we were delighted to secure a WDC Large Grant Funding and Landfill Tax Funding for the installation of a new MUGA in the King George V Field in Milton. When completed it is envisaged that our Village Community Hall will be used even more and will encourage all ages to be more active having a positive impact on overall health.

We worked with Business Energy Scotland for 18 months concluding in a large grant application for conversion of the Village Community Hall to greener energy. In August 2024 this was deemed as unsuccessful. In the interim we have applied for other grants towards the 25% contribution required from our group, for a planning application and other small costs and were successfully awarded these grants which we will currently hold in our bank account until we are successful in securing the large amount of funds required to complete this project. 

To enable all of this to happen we are still actively working on this project in order to achieve meeting our greener energy targets and cutting our current utility costs by 75% as advised in our Business Energy Report to enable all this to happen.

We are currently in need of a new fridge/freezer, which due to inefficiency, requires replacement and should help towards reducing some of our overall running costs. 

Purchase of new fridge/freezer at a cost of £300.

Contribution towards food costs £500

Contribution to utility costs £1700 - Hopefully covering a six month period

In order for us to continue functioning in the way we have over the last two and half years as a group, we request the assistance of a total grant of £2500 in order to be able to sustain and utilise our community resources.

Equipment Costs:

• Cooker Hood Replacement: Our current cooker hood is no longer able to withstand the high temperatures generated during our weekly soup preparation. It has sustained significant damage and requires replacement. We anticipate a cost of £800-£1000 for a suitable replacement.
• Industrial Dishwasher: To efficiently handle the volume of dishes and cutlery used in the soup kitchen we need to replace our existing dishwasher with an industrial model. This upgrade is crucial to maintain hygiene and improve kitchen workflow. The estimated cost for an industrial dishwasher is £1,250.
• Kitchen Utensils: We are planing to invest £200-£250 in essential kitchen utensils. This will include items such as durable pots and pans, a high-quality toaster, and a microwave. These upgrades will enable us to prepare and serve meals more efficiently.

The five day trips for 2025 will be as follows:

4th August - Clyde Valley Farm - £1,729.00

5th August - Blair Drummond Safari Park - £1,942.08

6th August - Kay park - Entry is free of charge

7th August - Heads of Ayr Farm Park - £1,548.00

8th August - M&D's Theme Park - £2656.00

The trip is priced based on 112 kids from P4-P7 from the three schools above and 28 adult volunteers. We require a registration area for each morning and evening for parents to drop and collect children, normally Dumbarton Academy, which was priced at £423.48 in 2024 but this also included the hire for Knoxland Primary on the first day as we had an activity day in the school last year rather than a day trip, but have changed that this year.

We also require buses each day travelling to and from the venues which cost £3,460 for four days in 2024 as we did not require buses on the first day due to the activities being local, so this price will increase in 2025.

Our Insurance to cover this was £223.79 in 2024 which I don't imagine will change much. We ask for a donation of £50.00 per child attending towards the cost.

It is a popular week and we always have a waiting list of kids who would like to attend but are unable to as 140 pax is our max capacity. 

TOYS   £700

BOOKS £100

ARTS & CRAFTS £100

TEA/COFFEE etc £100

We are asking for £2500 all of which would be spent on materials, building of beds would be carried out by volunteers. The beds would be worked on by people suffering from Alzheimers, they would be led by the person who grows for foodshare at present helped by other plot holders. It is planned that Cornerstone(mental health group) will be on site in the near future and would be more than welcome to participate.

We are applying for funding to help towards our utility costs over the colder months when our bills are at an all time high. We run a food pantry, community cafe, warm hub and laundry service to vulnerable families who are struggling in financial hardship. Our running costs have increased by 30% since last year as a result of a surge in the demand for our services.  an average of 400 families visit us on a monthly basis and it's important that our building is warm, inviting and welcoming especially during the colder months.  our heating costs are averaging £1,200 although we haven't yet had a winter period in our new premises therefore we are very worried about what kind of increase we may see.