£434,000 in Major Grants approved at October General Meeting

The last major grants of 2010 have been approved at the October General Meeting of The Freemasons’ Grand Charity, totalling £434,000. Twelve charities have been awarded grants for projects based throughout England and Wales in the categories of medical research, support for vulnerable people and youth opportunities as well as one religious building grant.

Medical Research:

Action Medical Research £20,000
To fund a research fellowship in infant medulloblastoma under Dr C. Howell at the Northern Institute for Cancer Research. Medulloblastoma is a malignant brain tumour found in children. The charity funds all types of medical research for children. www.action.org.uk

Northwick Park Institute for Medical Research £100,000
To fund a training and research project at the Wolfson Unit for Endoscopy in St Mark’s Hospital, Middlesex, a specialist colorectal postgraduate teaching hospital. The grant will fund the development of a colonoscopy simulator which will be introduced to other hospitals and training centres across the UK and it is estimated that 200 clinicians will attend courses each year.  
www.npimr.org

Spinal Research £25,000
Translational research on chondroitinase to enable nerve regrowth. The research project will be led by Dr E Muir at Cambridge University. The charity funds wide-ranging research into treatment for paralysis caused by spinal cord injury. www.spinal-research.org

Youth Opportunities

Childhood First £20,000
To fund a placement and family support team in Norfolk. The charity works with children with severe emotional and behavioural problems caused by abuse and neglect. The family support is run as an outreach programme providing tailor-made therapeutic support to traumatised children and their family and carers.  www.childhoodfirst.org.uk

Kidscape £15,000
To fund workshops for children who are at risk of becoming bullies. The charity supports bullied children by providing anti-bullying resources and training. These workshops will work with potential bullies and a mentor to help channel aggression and stop bullying at an early stage. The charity is based in London. www.kidscape.org.uk

Volunteer Reading Help £15,000
To fund a project to help children in care to improve their reading through the use of volunteer reading helpers. The charity helps children in deprived areas to develop reading skills through support in schools and is currently helping 211 children in care. The project will operate in Kent and the Wirral.
www.vrh.org.uk

Vulnerable People

British Red Cross £50,000
A new first aid unit vehicle for Cambridgeshire. The grant is part of a rolling programme to provide new vehicles to serve every Province and vehicles have already been funded in the West Midlands, Lancashire and Essex. www.redcross.org.uk

Crisis £50,000
A grant of £50,000 to crisis to fund the development of a new Skylight Centre for homeless people in Oxford. The centre will provide education, training and employment services to single homeless people. Crisis has existing centres in London and Newcastle which were used by 3,000 people last year and the charity opened a new centre in Birmingham this year. Further Crisis Spotlight centres are planned for Edinburgh and Liverpool. www.crisis.org.uk

Friends of the Elderly £80,000
To fund a new 24 bed dementia unit in Malvern. The unit will be attached to an existing residential home run by Friends of the Elderly and will provide specialist and dedicated nursing care for people suffering from dementia. The charity runs 16 residential and nursing homes for the elderly and also provides home and day services in certain areas.  www.fote.org.uk

Pilotlight Cymru £10,000
To fund the salary of an office administrator to enable the capacity building charity to expand into Wales. The charity offers small charities business input for a 2-year period by matching teams of four senior business people with charity leaders through a mentoring process. The charity has been established in London for seven years and evaluation shows that partner charities increase the number of people they work with by an average of 57% and achieve a 54% increase in turnover.  www.pilotlight.org.uk

St John Cymru £44,000
To fund a new lifeboat in West Wales. There is no local RNLI station in the area and this is the only lifeboat run by St John Cymru. The charity provides voluntary first aid support and is the leading provider of first aid training in Wales as well as operating a patient transport service and providing educational youth development programmes. www.sja.org.uk

Religious Buildings

Lichfield Cathedral £5,000
To contribute to the cost of the conservation of the Herkenrode glass in the Lady Chapel. www.lichfield-cathedral.org

If you would like detailed information regarding any of these grants please contact Katrina Baker at kbaker@the-grand-charity.org

For further information regarding The Freemasons’ Grand Charity please contact Siobhan McCarthy at smccarthy@the-grand-charity.org or on 020 7395 9385.

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