We are celebrating after receiving £281,123 from the National Lottery!
We are over the moon to announce that we have been awarded over £280,000 in National Lottery funding to support our work with volunteers and families across Yorkshire. This fund will enable us to expand our work with children and young people to include creative activities for families and care-givers to help develop children’s communication skills through the joyful discovery of stories. It will help us to take our unique and magical offer into communities and groups across Rotherham and beyond, through artistic story taster activities that champion culture and creativity within communities.
The new funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest funder of community activity in the UK, will see an expansion of our previous activities. Along with our move to new premises on Ship Hill, this will enable us to work with younger children and families, addressing communication issues and low literacy levels at an earlier stage.
We will be consulting with the communities across Rotherham as part of the programmes and this consultation, specifically focused on ‘making welcome’ and ‘being relevant to communities’, will inform and influence plans for our project to refurbish our Emporium of Stories in the heart of Rotherham Town Centre. We want this project to help to dispel negative perceptions of Rotherham and its residents, challenging community narratives and apathy that many Rotherham residents feel about their town and give them a reason to be really proud, invested and engaged in the place they call home.
Reactions to the news:
A volunteer from Grimm & Co stated, “Working creatively with the young people and their families is such a reward and to see their genuine overwhelming positive responses is so life affirming and such a reassurance that the “Grimm way” can have so many benefits for their mental heath and academic achievements. Being in Rotherham is also incredibly important to give its residents a chance that they probably can’t find anywhere else in their community.”
Sarah Dunwell, chair of Grimm & Co says: “Volunteers are Grimm & Co’s life blood. We are thrilled to be able to take our work to the next level, thanks to the National Lottery Community fund. After a very strange (yet hectic for us) 18 months, we can’t wait to get started”.
Deborah Bullivant, founding director of Grimm & Co, says: “We’re delighted that The National Lottery Community Fund has recognised our work in this way and supported this project to take place over the next 3 years. Now, thanks to National Lottery players we will be able to reach children and young people when they are younger through exciting story activities and we will be able to connect with a variety of community groups, celebrating their stories and making new ones”.
As a result of the funding, we are excited to be recruiting for 3 new staff members to take this project forward, as well as two other posts, and more details of these exciting vacancies are available over on the jobs page – click here for details.
