The Big Lottery Fund has launched a new grant scheme to encourage community groups and organisations to hold one off events or activities which celebrate their local community.

The Celebrate Grant scheme has been set up by the Big Lottery Fund in response to a YouGov poll where six out of ten respondents said that they could not remember ever coming together to celebrate anything with their community.

The new £3.875 million Celebrate fund will provide grants of between £300 and £10,000 to enable voluntary and community organisations, schools and statutory bodies to hold one off events and activities which give their community the chance to come together to mark something important. This could be, for example, an event such as the Queens 90th Birthday, commemorating a local historic event or getting to know the neighbours better.

All projects must be open to everyone in the community being served. Priority will be given to applications which show communities coming together to celebrate and share their diverse cultures and to applications which demonstrate that the proposed activity is desired and led by the local community.

To find out more click here; https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/celebrateengland