Job Title - Volunteer Development Co-Ordinator 

Amount Requested = £12,000.00 

Summerhill Centre in North West Dumfries needs your vote to help us reduce poverty levels; reduce the cost of living expenses and increase equal opportunities in our communities. We can do this by maintaining and building upon our existing free community food sharing projects, our Health and Wellbeing activities for all ages which include: •    Helping hand to reduce cost of living through our new Community Food Pantry whereby people choose  own food and essential items in a dignified and affordable manner.  •    Provision of healthy and fresh food boxes delivered to our most vulnerable. •    Weekly home made soup for distribution through First Base Food Bank.  •    New skills to prepare healthy homemade meals to take home for all the family. •    Fun youth activities; weekly trips; fitness opportunities; daily support & supper.  •    Community Buddies - adult fitness, home baking kits and wellbeing activities  •    Community Training and First Steps in Digital Connections  •    Environmental skills at our Community Land Art, gardens & food growing allotment 

Summerhill Centre is Dumfries Hub for Fareshare Food Provision. We plan and organise  food from Glasgow Fareshare every Tuesday and Friday to support our many partners who then receive the  food and distribute into our communities.  Our activities are critical to continue tackling poverty with a dignified approach and developing positive routes out of despair.  These are only possible with our army of volunteers who collectively give over 260 hours per week facilitating our many groups and managing the centre.  We need funding to employ our Volunteer and Community Development Co-ordinator. Our work helps to develop each individual to grow and develop strengths and independence to work their way out of poverty.  We also help to develop effective community leaders, regardless of their experiences or circumstances. By the Community – For the Community

Video: https://youtu.be/PAWRC4pgw-I 

Job Title - Horticultural Trainer 

Amount Requested = £13,760.70 

Potters Garden ‘s experience of working to tackle poverty is diverse. 

We work with people of all ages living with Autistic Spectrum Condition/learning disabilities/additional support needs that vary in complexity, we provide horticultural and woodwork training placements. Additionally, we work with young people in transition with additional support needs, from Stranraer Academy.  Most of whom have entry level academic skills, some will have a learning disability, while others live with autistic spectrum conditions. For some, college is not an option as it requires a level of ability which most of these young people have not yet acquired; also, the pace of learning at college can leave young adults unable to keep up, hence more likely to give up. 

The role of the Horticulture Trainer involves working with people of all ages living with Autistic Spectrum Condition/learning disabilities/additional support needs. The post holder will train individuals and group users in horticultural/gardening skills.   

Job Title - Food and Budgeting Co-Ordinator 

Amount Requested = £10,663.00 

Currently, DGMA is accessible to any public member, women, men, families with children, homeless and low-income individuals and families, for people in work poverty, fuel poverty, refugees, asylum seekers, members of Minority Communities, pensioners, over 50s, young people, unpaid carers, and disabled people.  

DGMA with this project, Food and Budgeting Coordinator aims to ensure the people of Nithsdale, especially those in deprived, marginalized, hard to reach, vulnerable, disadvantaged, and seldom heard groups to have their voices heard, and work with them to improve their livelihood, maximize their household income, have improved equal access to healthy food, and access to information and services are maintained.

Video: https://youtu.be/HHanUsiSCAY 

Job Title - Football Development Officer Post 

Amount Requested: £15,000.00 

We are a local Youth Football Club based in Castle-Douglas providing structured coaching and competitive association football to over 200 children and young adults ranging from pre-school through to under 18 level. 

In 2017 with support from the SYFA and local businesses we established our current pitch at Birkland Park, Castle Douglas. This involved the installation of changing rooms and storage facilities, car parking and connection of utilities. The pitch is leased from Dumfries & Galloway Council and is securely fenced to provide a safe environment for the local community to use. Our current facilities are not able to support all of our needs throughout the year, the pitch is not floodlit so has limited availability during the winter and the single grass pitch is not able to support the number of teams we have wishing to carry out training because of wear on the playing surface. As a result during the winter period we supplement our own facilities by hiring the 3G pitch at Dalbeattie High School, this puts considerable strain on the clubs finances and also greatly increases the cost to parents with the additional travel involved during the winter months. It also has the potential to exclude some children from football where they do not have access to transport to and from training.

We also aim to ensure that each and every one of our services can be accessed by children from all backgrounds and that young people from under privileged backgrounds are given exactly the same opportunities as all other children and young people from our local area.

Our Football Development Officer Post will Co-ordinate bookings for all pitches and Games Hall for both club use and external users, promote spare capacity to local groups to maximise the use of the facilities, maintain four sport pitches and provide training to additional volunteers on grounds maintenance which will lead to improved qualifications and potential new job opportunities, promote and manage all appropriate training for coaching skills, first aid etc, support our Club in meeting its Aims & Objectives and develop all programmes and activities to ensure that children and young people from low-income households can attend all sessions.

Job Title - Anti-Poverty Outreach Worker      

Amount Requested = £12,000.00 

At River of Life, we’ve loved helping people through our surplus food drop-in services over the last couple of years. We’ve always been passionate about meeting practical needs and access to food is the most basic need everyone has. We collect and distribute from Aldi, M&S, Tesco and Lidl stores on a daily basis. Good food that would otherwise be thrown away now supplies vital needs almost 365 days a year!

We’ve gained a reputation as welcoming, non-institutional and non-judgmental in our approach to anyone who comes to us for help and we’ve developed precious relationships with hundreds, or even thousands of people.

Through the last year of crisis, we’ve noticed some important opportunities to help people even more, by helping them find longer term solutions to the difficulties they face.

What we want to do, if successful, is employ an Anti-Poverty Outreach Worker to find loads of other sources of help – financial, skills, work and life skills – to help people build a better life for themselves and their families. Often folk just need to know where to turn and some encouragement that getting out of poverty permanently is possible. 

The outreach worker would come to our drop-in sessions to chat and be available to meet up for coffee with people who want to discuss their opportunities further. They’ll be a listening ear with knowledge to help access tangible services and assistance.   Please vote for our project and help lots of ordinary people get out of poverty for good!

Video: The Pantry at River of Life.mp4 - Google Drive