Northants Acre needs your vote to win £52,000 of National Lottery funding

A hard-working charity, Northants ACRE, is calling on local people to help them secure £52000 of National Lottery funding by voting for them in this year’s The People’s Projects.Based in Northamptonshire, Northants ACRE is one of five groups in ITV Anglia West region in the running for a share of almost £250,000 of funding.

If successful, Northants ACRE will use the money to purchase the ‘friendship van’ a coffee van which will bring much needed help to vulnerable and lonely people in rural communities, bringing with it a shop, library, food parcels and more, the friendship van will bring support that vulnerable isolated people that cannot access support in towns due to the poor bus networks. The friendship van will be bookable by anyone in the community and will reducing loneliness, food poverty and insecurity.

The People’s Projects not only delivers vital grants to the heart of UK communities, but also raises awareness of the incredible work of the 95 shortlisted community groups vying for your vote. Back after a 3-year break, The National Lottery Community Fund, ITV, UTV and the Sunday Mail (in Scotland) have teamed up to give the public a chance to decide how National Lottery funding should be put to good use in their local area.

In each region, the three projects with the most public votes will receive grants of up to £70,000. This funding will help make a real difference to people’s lives, particularly in these difficult times. The runner’s up in each region will be offered up to £10,000 towards their project, bringing the total funding up for grabs for communities across the UK to over £4 million.

On Thursday the 18th Northants ACRE will showcase its project, The Friendship Van on ITV Anglia West regional news at 6pm. To be in with a chance of winning, Northants ACRE is calling on viewers to support its bid. Voting opens at 9am on Monday 15th May at www.thepeoplesprojects.org.uk

Jenni Hedges, Rural Officer, at Northants ACRE said: “The People’s Projects has given us an amazing opportunity to raise awareness and support for our work and, with your help, secure this additional much-needed funding. If we win, our project will make a real difference to our local community by providing people with a social space to get a nice frothy coffee, reducing isolation, and bringing help to people that do not have the means to travel, delivering+30 missing services like libraries, shops and foodbanks to their door. We now need local people to get behind us, to show their support and vote.”

David Knott, Chief Executive of The National Lottery Community Fund, said: “The People’s Projects delivers much-needed funding to the heart of communities and showcases the incredible efforts of hard-working projects across the UK. The short-listed groups are truly inspirational, each delivering life-changing support to their community in different ways. It is now time for the public to have their say in how vital National Lottery funding is used in their area to make a difference to people’s lives, particularly in these challenging times.”

Since it started in 2005, The People’s Projects has awarded around £45 million to over 1,000 good causes.

Voting closes at noon on Friday 26 May 2023. People can vote only once per region and will need an email address or mobile number to vote*. To support ‘The friendship van’ and for Terms and Conditions please visit www.thepeoplesprojects.org.uk

National Lottery players raise over £30 million each week across the UK for good causes.

Last year The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK, awarded over half a billion pounds (£579.8m) of life-changing funding to communities across the UK, supporting over 14,500 projects. Over the last three years, its funding has reached every constituency and every local authority in the UK.