Regional publishing group Newsquest has announced the recipients of a £250,000 pre-Christmas giveaway to good causes up and down the UK.
The gifts, being handed out by the group’s charitable fund, will pay for everything from hospice beds to a new pony for disabled riders.
Organisations in areas served by Newsquest’s 165 local newspaper titles were encouraged to apply for grants, made each year by the Gannett Foundation
Over the last ten years, the fund has given away more than £3m to help community causes from Scotland to the West Country.
This year’s grants include around £90,000 altogether towards medical equipment and services that public funds do not cover locally.
The beneficiaries include local hospices as well as a protein-analysing mass spectrometer for cancer research at the University of Bradford, which is now in use.
Chair of the trustees and Newsquest head of legal Simon Westrop said: “Of course there are lots of demands on donors from charities serving the sick, disabled and the poor. As local news publishers, we think we can also make a difference on a less obvious and simpler level.
“So we are always just as pleased to make relatively small but creative gifts to encourage activities of all kinds that enrich the daily lives of the people who read our brands.”
The full list of awards, by publishing region, is as follows:
Dorset
* Faithworks Wessex, Bournemouth: Home starter kits for rough sleepers £6,000
* Julia’s House, Poole: Vital equipment for a children’s hospice £5,250
Essex & North London
* Enfield Women’s Centre: Extension of counselling space £10,000
* Hospice of St Francis, Berkhampstead: Refurbishment of in-patient unit £9,100
* MS-UK, Chelmsford: Two specialist exercise chairs for suffers of multiple sclerosis £7,360
* Tram Stop, Southend: Special matting to give the disabled access to the beach and sea-swimming £4,400
Hampshire
* Andover Foodbank: Christmas gift boxes £960
* St John’s School PTA, Basingstoke: Defibrillator available to the school and local community £530
* Viables Community Association, Basingstoke: Tools for site re-generation by the gardening volunteers £1,000
Midlands
* Aspire Living Full, Hereford: Horticultural project for people with learning disabilities £6,550 (towards equipment)
North East
* Acorn Community Care, North Yorkshire: Walk-in cold room for the community farm shop £7,200
* Bradford Crocus Scanner Appeal: contribution to Bradford University’s purchase of a proteomics mass spectrometer to aid cancer research, fulfilling a promise made two years ago £20,000
* Darley Memorial Hall, Lastingham: Screen and projector to run lectures £480
* Darlington Town Mission: Telephones with nuisance call screening for the elderly £900
* Wilberfoss and Kexby Playing Fields: Defibrillator pack £1,000
North West
* 10th Warrington Scout Group: New tents £2,850
* Bendrigg Trust, Kendall (outdoor education centre): Wheelchair swing for a new recreation area £6100
* Blackburn Darwen District Without Abuse: Improving facilities at a domestic refuge £6,200
* Connect, St Helens: Toy library for disabled children £5,000
* Counselling and Family Centre, Altrincham: Computers for an educational project supporting vulnerable adults and children £1,275
* East Cheshire Hospice, Macclesfield: Specialised bed £9,135
* Harrison Hall Community Centre, Wallasey: Modernised stage £2,500
* Mid-Cheshire Riding for the Disabled: A larger pony for disabled children and adults £2,500
* Sight Advice, South Lakes: Interactive whiteboard for the visually impaired, and training for staff to use it £3,020
* The Neuromuscular Centre, Winsford, Cheshire: Two ‘power-tilt’ physiotherapy tables for sufferers of muscular dystrophy £3,800
Northern Ireland
* Aisling Centre, Enniskillen: IT and other equipment to transform back-room administration £9,770
Oxfordshire & Wiltshire
* Arch Child Protection, Bicester: New books for a literacy programme £3,900
* Katherine House Hospice, Banbury: Completing funding for a Fiat Doblo wheelchair-carrying vehicle £7,265
* Little Somerford Parish Hall: Replacing village hall chairs £925
* Riding for the Disabled, Oxfordshire: Two field shelters for ponies £5,000
* Stepping Stones, Trowbridge: ‘Laser Twilight’ projector for a sensory room for children with development problems £450
* Swift Medics (Swindon and Wiltshire): Equipping a doctor to attend the scene of medical emergencies (for which the NHS does not provide) £5,000
* Wessex MS Therapy, Warminster: “Airnergy” oxygen therapy equipment for bringing relief to suffers of multiple sclerosis at home £5,200
Scotland
* ConfiDance, Glasgow: Dance weekend for the blind and visually impaired £1,000
* For All Bridgeton, Glasgow: Children’s play equipment £3,302
* New Caledonian Woodlands, Edinburgh: A project to help people recovering from mental illness to build a build a ‘sun-trap- garden £1,600
* St Paul’s Youth Forum, Glasgow: A polytunnel, fruit trees and gardening tools to expand a horticultural project for young people from poor families £3,680
* The Glasgow Play Resource Association: A second-hand paper and cardboard compressor to raise funds from re-cycling activities £2,500
* The Saturday Café, Glasgow: Resurfacing an outdoor area for recreational activities in this community social centre £5,780
South London
* Home Start Wandsworth: Kitchen equipment for teaching cooking skills to carers in families coping with illness or disability £1,702
* Momentum: Pain distraction unit to help children with life-limiting conditions £7,450
* St Raphael’s Hospice, Sutton: Syringe drivers £4,520
Sussex
* Chailey Heritage, East Sussex: Eye gaze tracker for the disabled, enabling computer control by eye movement £6,940
Somerset & Cornwall
* St Mary Magdalene, Taunton: The church has raised £205,000 of a £264,000 project to restore the church bells and carillon. This is a gift of £5,000, subject to the rest being raised.
Wales & Gloucestershire
* Intensory Club, Barry: Three ‘Tom Cat’ tricycles for the young disabled £5,400
* Wales Deaf Rugby Union, Penarth: Funding to extend rugby sessions for the deaf £3,000
Media industry charitable awards
* Campaign for Freedom of Information: £5,000 for its educational purposes, overseen by the Rowntree Trust.
* National Council for the Training of Journalists: £5,000 for educational purposes, in particular sponsorship of the trainee journalists’ logbook scheme.
* Newstraid: £10,000 to support the work of this benevolent fund for workers involved in newspaper retailing and distribution.
* Rory Peck Trust: £5,000 for its work supporting freelance journalists.
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All well and good but surely Christmas bonuses for loyal staff would also be an acceptable use of funds. Hmm, very mixed feelings on this one.
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So, we were wrong about Newsquest. They are not cut-throat business operators, but our secret fairy godmothers all along.
But, methinks, there’s more to this than meets the eye.
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This is a Gannett initiative led by American philanthropy, not sure Newsquest in the UK actually has much of a say in it. Newspapers supporting good causes locally does’t have to be viewed with suspicion, even when with the other hand the local management is cutting jobs paid for from different budgets.
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What a generous company that Newsquest appear to be, I bet that they look after their staff well.
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Awww. What a great company. All of those big bad people who are having a go at Newsquest really need to take a good hard look at themselves… as they walk past the job centre and see journalists lining up outside a few weeks before Christmas.
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Tax deductible, surely?
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Seriously folks, whatever the rights and wrongs of what Newsquest are doing on a business basis, to snipe and whinge at the fact that thousands of people might benefit from these annual awards is really rather petty.
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Bertie Reed: we are talking about a distressed business not a social welfare agency. Why make such a public song and dance about this when, as several posters note, plenty of people have been put into a situation by NQ where they may need a food bank or similar? If it were a healthy business with secure and well-paid employees then fair enough, but there is a discrepancy here that gives me an uneasy feeling, as it obviously does others.
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Dick – interesting point of view. Whether this can be construed as a ”public song and dance” I’m not sure, but in any event I don’t think it’s too unreasonable to set to one side the current state of the business, and simply give some credit that these donations are being made – via the local titles – to deserving local projects and causes. They have been done, as the original article stated, for over ten years, and so were made during the good times, and have continued through the recent bad times. Newsquest are hardly unique in having made redundancies over the past few years (myself included) but they may just be unique in operating this kind of scheme, which as I humbly stated will surely give help and benefit to a lot of people.
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I used to feel a twinge of jealousy when I wrote stories about Gannett handing over money to good causes in my Newsquest paper’s area. I was on a crap wage and hadn’t had a pay rise for several years. When you can hardly afford to put petrol in your car, pay the mortgage and feed yourself you do tend to feel like a charity case. But the only grudge I feel is against the senior management and the last chief executive who enjoyed fat bonuses, nice cars and second homes while treating employees like me with contempt.
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Anything for the Foodbank – for former staff given the boot just before Christmas?
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Funny how Newsquest can provide a comment for a good news story but then are always ‘unavailable for comment’ when they are putting people out of work. Well done.
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Well done Newsquest for putting something back into the communities they serve.
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