Surrey Heath Community Fund

27th April 2016

The Surrey Heath Community Fund is a fund specifically for the benefit of Surrey Heath and its residents established in partnership with Voluntary Support North Surrey. The fund enables and encourages local giving so that we can develop a greater capacity to respond to local needs.

The Surrey Heath Community Fund makes it easy for local residents to support the breadth of needs in the Surrey Heath community by:

  • Exclusively supporting local community projects
  • Pooling donations from companies, individuals and families to make a bigger impact
  • Providing a sustainable source of funding to support the evolving community needs
  • Developing the capacity to respond to local issues as they arise

 

Examples of grants from the fund:

Surrey Drug and Alcohol Care – £2,000 

Surrey Drug and Alcohol Care (SDAC) provides a 24/7 manned confidential helpline giving emotional support, information and advice to drug and alcohol users, their families and friends within Surrey. The service aims to provide a listening ear, offer motivational support and encouragement and advice and information on drugs and alcohol.

This grant supported the charity’s Telephone Counselling Service – a free service which was operated initially as a pilot in 2010 and now provides support to between 500 and 600 clients a year affected by their own or somebody else’s alcohol and/or drug misuse.


Sparklers Foundation – £1,500

Sparklers Foundation supports families where there is a child or young person aged 2-25 with special needs or autism. Support is through provision of social networking opportunities, playgroups, advice, guidance, and signposting, parental advocacy, playgroups for children with special needs and their siblings, sibling conversations groups, and social events for parents and carers.

This grant supported holiday playgroup costs for families with a child with a disability and their siblings. The playgroup sessions reduced isolation for families where an individual has special needs and provided peer support for parents and carers, as well as a nurturing environment for siblings. The events provided an opportunity for families to meet special needs professionals, and families to gain confidence in communicating their areas of difficulty with other parents.