A grant from the Surrey Sports Fund and The Pargiter Trust Fund has awarded a total of £12,500 to GoodGym. GoodGym is a community of runners who get fit by doing good, by doing physical tasks that benefit their community. The funding from the Community Foundation for Surrey will cover the core costs of establishing GoodGym in Woking – the first in Surrey.
What will a GoodGym in Woking do?
GoodGym members run:
In groups to do manual labour for community organisations.
To make social visits to isolated older people referred to ‘coaches’ because they motivate runners to keep going.
Missions for older people; such as clearing gardens, changing lightbulbs and doing odd-jobs for people who struggle to do them alone.
An area of need that GoodGym has particularly focused on is loneliness and isolation amongst older people, with over 1 million people aged 65 and over admitting to always or often feeling lonely, and 17% of those living alone seeing family and friends less than once a week.
Bringing this project to Surrey will advance GoodGym’s aim of getting people all over the world off treadmills and into their communities in addition to tackling isolation. The Community Foundation looks forward to seeing GoodGym “up and running” in Woking in the near future!
You can find out more about the tasks that GoodGym runners undertake in their communities by reading their run reports.
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27th April 2016
Grants totally £5,000 from our Surrey Sports Fund and money donated from the Bishop of Guildford’s Foundation supported adults not in education, employment or training to participate in weekly football sessions.
This project is an expansion of the Trust’s existing adults’ football activities, all of which currently take place in evenings and at weekends. The aim is to provide a daytime football session, which meets the needs of those aged 16 and over, who are not in education, employment or training.
This project aims to get people active and provide an opportunity for them to meet new people, and access support. Often those who are not in education, employment or training are lonely and iscolated, making it harder for them to find help. Through this targeted project, they will be able to meet and interact with others and feel part of a team, joining in with community activities, often for the first time.
Surrey Sports Fund
Surrey Sports Fund launched in 2008 to provide funding for local projects which enable access and participation in Sport across the county, with a focus on making sure that opportunities are created for people who may not otherwise have them.
Since establishing, the Fund has awarded 96 grants totalling £196,000, and the projects we have supported show the incredible determination and passion of local people and their desire to take part in sport and benefit other peoples lives.
Grants are awarded from the fund to help people to access & enjoy sport who are prevented due to:
A mental or physical disability – for example disabled children who require special equipment to enable them to play a sport
Social or economic deprivation – for example funding the training of volunteers on a housing estate to become sports coaches for young people
Examples of recent grants from the fund:
Kinetic Foundation
A grant was awarded to the Kinetic Foundation to run October 2022 Half Term Sports Projects in the east of Surrey (Redhill & Preston).
This charity ran engaging and active sport sessions for 6-12 year old children giving activity for up to 100 young people this autumn. The sports offered varied from football and cricket to netball and athletics, making sure that young people had the opportunity to try new sports and take part, socialise and learn with new friends in a fun and safe environment. The sessions were free and open to all. Kinetic Foundation links with children services and Raven Housing to target specific families, who otherwise would not be able to participate in this type of activity.
Read about Richmond Lawn Tennis Club’s fundrasing event that raised £1,200 towards the above grant award – Game, set and Match!
Disability Initiative – £2,000
Disability Initiative specialises in the provision of services to adults with complex physical disabilities and/or acquired brain injury.
This grant will support the charity to continue to provide non-contact boxing sessions to clients who attend the service. The grant will help address the needs of up to 20+ physically disabled or brain injured clients each week but will also be beneficial to the 70+ disadvantaged young people who currently attend the local boxing gym who access this resource.
Clients who have attended the boxing sessions to date have reported an improvement in their fitness, mobility, co-ordination, and general well-being.
Scorchers Basketball Foundation – Basketball for All
Surrey Sports Fund made a grant of £3,000 in 2018 to enable the Surrey Scorchers Basketball Foundation to deliver basketball sessions to hundreds of local young people from disadvantaged areas in Surrey. The Scorchers professional players take part in the sessions, providing young people with positive role models and mentors whilst also helping to increase their physical activity and engagement with sport.
Surrey Scorchers have been successful in working with local schools in the county and continue to target areas of highest need to ensure their support reaches those who need it.
Supporting the Surrey Sports Fund
Our goal in 2020 is to significantly increase the number of projects in Surrey which we can support. We are keen to hear from people and businesses in Surrey who share our passion for helping people to access local sports opportunities. Please do get in touch if you would like to make a donation or can help in another way.
A message from founding donor to the Surrey Sports Fund John Jeffrey:
A relatively small grant can make a real difference to the lives of local people, and donors to the Sports Fund can go and visit the projects to see how the money has benefitted others. Anyone in Surrey who is passionate about Sport in Surrey can donate – it is extremely rewarding. One particularly outstanding group we supported is the Frensham Pond Sailability, which gives people with disabilities the opportunity to sail. They were a very inspiring group of people.
