Rumbling Bridge Hydro Community Fund announces latest awards
The Rumbling Bridge Hydro Community Fund has announced two new grants to local community organisations in Clackmannanshire and Kinross.
An award of £6,256 to the Village Kitchen CIC will enable the Village Kitchen team to continue to support the provision of a meals-on-wheels service and weekly lunch club for older people. An additional award of £5,700 to the Fossoway & District Horticultural Society will enable the group to purchase a raft of new equipment to support their ongoing work.
This is the first round of grant-making from the Rumbling Bridge fund under new administrative arrangements with national community benefit specialist charity Foundation Scotland.
The fund is provided for the benefit of the environment, and for people living within the Fossoway and District Community Council area and the Muckhart Community Council area. Applications are particularly welcome from projects that promote renewable energy use, alleviate energy poverty, promote community spirit, preserve the environment and heritage, develop facilities and events for the community, or improve community services.
Jennifer Best, from the Fossoway & District Horticultural Society said:
“Thanks to a very generous £5,700 grant from the Rumbling Bridge Hydro Community Fund, administered by Foundation Scotland, the Fossoway & District Horticultural Society will be able to purchase a box trailer to store and transport exhibition equipment and continue to update and improve our IT systems. The purchase of the trailer will ensure our equipment is safely and securely stored and it will also make a huge difference to our volunteers, by significantly reducing the amount of lifting they do to move and set-up our equipment at events. The continuation of our work to upgrade our IT systems, including the further development of our website will, we hope, improve the awareness of the Society and the experiences of our Show exhibitors, visitors and volunteers. The Fossoway & District Horticultural Society Committee would like to thank The Rumbling Bridge Hydro Community Fund for their kind and generous support.”
The community fund provides grants of between £3,000 and £10,000 and is derived from the community-owned Rumbling Bridge Hydro which has been generating clean, green electricity since 2016. The society has 664 members, including local people and supporters of the wider renewable energy community, who have all invested upwards of £250.
Funding decisions are made by the recently established Rumbling Bridge Community Panel, which comprises two locally based Directors from the Rumbling Bridge Hydro Community Society and representatives of the Fossoway & District and Muckhart Community Councils.
Hugh Wallace, Founder and Chair of the Rumbling Bridge Hydro Community Society said:
“I’m delighted that a new community benefit fund has been set up in conjunction with Foundation Scotland and has now made its first awards. This is in addition to £50,000 of support provided to Broke not Broken, the Kinross based food bank, in the past year and continuing support paid directly to Fossoway Community Council to be administered at their discretion. The hydro project took a long time coming and nearly foundered at numerous points so it’s just wonderful to see it now generates so much local zero carbon energy and is reinvesting back into the very same communities.”
Rachel Searle, Head of Communities at Foundation Scotland added:
“The Rumbling Bridge Hydro is an incredible asset for the community, generating both clean energy and funding to benefit the local community. It’s a real win-win and we’re delighted to be supporting them in their efforts to maximise the funding that is now available.”