Cash for the charity which matters to you!

It could be that you volunteer or work for a charity, or you may just want to support your favourite local charity by nominating it for a share of the £16,000 cash we’re making available to support great local courses.

Making a nomination couldn’t be easier – simply log-on to www.southwalesargus.co.uk/readerschoice and fill in your nomination form or you can write to us, confirming the name and address of the charity you’d like to nominate and why to: Readers’ Choice Cash For Charity Nominations, Fleet House, Hampshire Road, Weymouth, DT4 9XD by the closing date of Sunday, September 11, 2022

Once all nominations have been received, our editor will select ten of the most deserving local charities to be featured in this year’s grants scheme.

We’re then going to put the power to allocate the cash back into your hands – for four weeks readers will be invited to collect tokens from our newspapers which can then be sent to collection points across our region or posted.

Each token collected will then be used to allocate cash to the nominated charity – so if your favourite charity collects 50 per cent of all to tokens collected, it will receive 50 per cent of the £16,000!

The £16,000 cash is being provided by our parent company’s charitable arm: The Gannett Foundation.

This year the Gannett Foundation will donate £128,000 to charities across the country.

Last year Oakdale-based charity Helping Caring Team were awarded cash as part of our parent company's Cash for Charities appeal.

Hayley Thomas, chairman of HCT, which provides an outreach service for people experiencing homelessness, said she was delighted to hear of the £1,500 donation.

She said: "We are very grateful for this. The money will come in very useful especially buying fresh food to go into some of our food parcels."

The charity covers Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Newport and Torfaen and offers an outreach service twice a week to homeless people in these areas giving them hot food and snacks.

It also runs a food bank providing food parcels, toiletries and cleaning products and is on hand to help people in need with hospital packs or help for those who are setting up home after being homeless.

The charity was one of eight from the Wales and West region of Newsquest to be nominated.

Newport-based Sparkle was awarded almost £3,500 as part of the appeal in 2021.

Sparkle chairwoman Dr Sabine Maguire said she was delighted with the awarding of the Gannett Foundation grant.

“This is a fantastic early Christmas present which will enable Sparkle to go ahead with plans to create a woodland walk for our children, and others in the wider community, to enjoy,” she said.

The woodland walk will create a totally wheelchair-accessible path through the grounds of the Serennu children’s centre in Rogerstone.

Dr Maguire said: “This will bring so much benefit to so many children and young people giving them access to nature, which as the impact of the pandemic has shown, is so important for us all.”

The grant will go towards the £14,300 cost of the whole project.

“We would like to thank the Gannett Foundation for awarding the grant and to all those who supported us in securing this funding. It will make a real difference,” said Dr Maguire.

Qualifying Criteria

• Applicants must be registered charities.

• Applicants must not have received a grant from us within the last two years

• Preference to be given to projects supporting those in our communities who are overlooked or under-served.

Grants will not be awarded for:

• Salaries, professional fees or day-to-day running or maintenance costs of the charity (but this does not exclude such expenses where essential to a specific project)

• General appeals as opposed to specific projects or items of equipment

• Projects that do not bring benefits to our local communities

• Political or religious objectives, or projects that discriminate in favour of particular ethnic or religious groups (but this does not exclude religious organisations offering charitable support to the sick or needy without discrimination)

• State or privately run schools (other than special needs)

• Hospitals (other than hospices)

• Community Interest Companies that are not registered charities

* Newsquest terms and conditions will apply where relevant to the grants process; please visit http://www.newsquest.co.uk/prize-competition-rules. Personal data will be used by Newsquest and its agents solely for the administration of the grants process and will not be shared with any third party; our general privacy notice is at: http://www.newsquest.co.uk/privacy-policy. This campaign will be published in multiple Newsquest publications across this Newsquest region. The 10 charities chosen by the local editorial panel will be voted for by our readers. The value of the grant awarded to each of the 10 charities will be calculated pro rata according to their share of the vote. Only original voting coupons will be accepted, no photocopies. The cash grants will be sent by BACS transfer. Grants are conditional on completion of the relevant project and a successful nominee charity may be required to evidence its use of the grant. The top 10 charities selected for the vote will be contacted to provide additional information for entry into the readers’ vote; should this information not be provided within the timescale provided then the editorial panel will select an alternative charity. The charity must be registered with the Charities Commission and have not received a grant from the Gannett Foundation in the last two years.