Grassroots groups working in Leicestershire and Rutland will get much-needed grants worth £52K to help support local women and girls facing a range of challenges.
6 projects will receive grants of between £5,000 – £10,000. This is the second time Leicestershire and Rutland Community Foundation has 
awarded groups money from the Tampon Tax Community Fund to help women and girls experiencing issues such as period poverty, domestic and sexual abuse and mental health.
The New Futures Project are one of the groups who will receive nearly £10K, the Director Della Cavner said:
“Being able to provide a hot breakfast and a warm place to rest for clients who have been sleeping on the street all night is such an important service for us to provide. This funding has come just as the weather is getting even colder which is perfect timing.
“We look forward to letting our clients know about the grant and what it can provide next week but in the meantime please accept my thanks on their behalf and on behalf of everyone associated with the project.”
Collectively as a network, UK Community Foundations is one of the UK’s largest grant-makers and was asked by government to distribute the largest share of the funding raised through the levy on sanitary products through its network of community foundations. A total of £6.9 million has been awarded nationally to grassroots groups in the two rounds of funding.
Katy Green, CEO of Leicestershire and Rutland Community Foundation said:
“This funding supports the groups on the ground that are making a huge difference to the lives of women and girls. We know there is huge demand out there for these services and are proud to help small organisations working in our community.”
The projects being funded:
• Falcon Support Services (Charnwood) were awarded £5,314 to recruit volunteers and employ a project support worker to support women with complex needs across their sex workers projects.
• FreeVA (Blaby) were awarded £8,116 to deliver four Sexual Violence Recovery Toolkits (RTK).
• Living Without Abuse (Charnwood) were awarded £9,118 to deliver an additional seven support groups to domestic abuse survivors within this year.
• New Dawn New Day Ltd were awarded £9,992 to recruit, train and support five new volunteer peer mentors to each work with six women over the year.
• The New Futures Project were awarded £9,987 to run a breakfast club from 10am to 12noon and open the Drop-In for an additional two hours a day.
• The Y (Leicester YMCA) were awarded £9,857 to support new young mums with parenting skills.
Community Foundations are local champions, connecting people and organisations that want to improve their communities. They invest in local people and organisations tackling some of the biggest issues facing communities today and supporting some of society’s most disadvantaged people. They provide help and advice to those who want to give at the heart of their communities, both now and in the long-term, by matching donors to important local causes.
Leicestershire and Rutland Community Foundation set up and manage personally-named giving funds for any sum of 5K or more, at much less cost than setting up a standalone charitable foundation. We enable support of any cause, especially the local charitable and voluntary groups that help keep our city and counties healthy, safe and thriving.
The Government’s Tampon Tax Fund allocates funds generated from the VAT on sanitary products to projects to improve the lives of disadvantaged women and girls. UKCF applied to DCMS for a large grant to set up the Tampon Tax Community Fund, working with its network of Community Foundations to support projects and services run by local groups specifically benefitting women and girls. To date, a total of £6.9 million has been awarded.
In 2018/19 the community foundation network distributed more than £98 million worth of grants and supported more than 5,641 people and 15,526 organisations.
