FILLING LARDERS

FEEDING hungry CHILDREN DURING LOCKDOWN Wooden Spoon Scotland helps Cash for Kids to cater for those in need

AFIVE figure contribution from Wooden

Spoon Scotland helped to feed families from Fife to Falkirk when the coronavirus pandemic pinched household budgets during lockdown.

The children’s charity of rugby donated £10,000 to Radio Forth’s Cash for Kids appeal, which called on listeners to raise funds to provide children facing disadvantage – through poverty, disability or illness – with vital essentials.

Matching donations were also presented to Radio Clyde in Glasgow and Radio Northsound in Aberdeen.

Wooden Spoon’s sizeable sum to Radio Forth was used to source and distribute food packages, toiletries and activity packs to homes across Edinburgh, the Lothians, Fife and Falkirk and softened the financial blow of a series of cancelled fundraising events. Cash for Kids’ annual Tour de Forth – a scenic 100km cycle along the River Forth, which usually attracts a large number of sponsored riders and altruistic spectators – was among the Covid-19 casualties that left the charity facing an uphill climb to support those in need.

Victoria Hendry, Radio Forth’s charity manager, said that Wooden Spoon’s efficiency and generosity in answering its plea for help had proved invaluable.

“We knew that the families we work with – specifically those living in poverty – were going to be hit the hardest by the pandemic, so we set up an urgent appeal to our supporters and the listeners of the radio station,” she told Spoonews.

“When Wooden Spoon donated, it was quite early in the pandemic and it was an absolute godsend for us. To hear that you are getting £10 is amazing but to get £10,000 made such a huge impact. We are a small, local charity so that £10,000 goes a really long way in helping these kids. “If we hadn’t received the support then we simply would not have been able to help hundreds of children at the crucial point during lockdown. For the funding to have been at the height of the pandemic was really important to us. We want to say a massive thank you to those who support and are involved with Wooden Spoon.”

As this issue of Spoonews went to press, Cash for Kids had brought welcome relief to more than 7,400 children in the station’s surrounding communities and was continuing to build a fund from which grants will help families with children cover essentials such as food and heating.

And further to rallying behind Radio Forth’s charitable drive, Wooden Spoon Scotland pledged £20,000 to The Larder to assist the social enterprise’s appetite for changing lives through food. One of the West Lothianbased charity’s specials is serving up cooking courses to tackle youth unemployment and it works directly with schools, community centres and businesses to do so.

“When Wooden Spoon donated, it was quite early in the pandemic and it was an absolute godsend for us. To hear that you are getting £10 is amazing but to get £10,000 made such a huge impact.”

BRIDGING THE GAP IN SCOTLAND

WOODEN Spoon demonstrated that it takes more than a global pandemic to stop it from helping others when it approved funding for two major projects in Scotland this summer.

The children’s charity of rugby’s trustees signed off on support for Kidney Kids Scotland Charitable Trust and Beechbrae SCIO.

The former, the only Scottish charity supporting children with renal/urology illness and their families, will receive a grant of £25,400 for dialysis equipment.

Providing the funding for a brand new specialised machine capable of treating babies and very young children – in addition to older patients, Wooden Spoon is helping Kidney Kids Scotland in its mission to provide treatment as close to home as possible and minimise disruption to households.

Although the new machine will be located in the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow it will be used for the treatment of children from all over Scotland.

Prior to Kidney Kids Scotland’s formation in 2000, there was no haemodialysis available for very young children within the country and the machines procured during the intervening years must be periodically replaced.

The team at the charity work closely and rely on the expertise of consultants, medical and welfare personnel to identify where help is most needed and support hospitals all over Scotland by supplying them with much needed equipment and funding for posts recognised as being essential.

Beechbrae – a community-led social enterprise and charity based in Beechbrae Wood, near the village of Blackridge in West Lothian – is to receive a £25,000 to fund a kitchen within its new Woodland Centre.

The facility will be primarily used by young people during various cooking classes and workshops, as well as expanding Beechbrae’s gardening, foraging and healthy eating programmes.

The kitchen will sit at the heart of the Centre (pictured above), which has been designed to connect the local community with natural spaces and help those struggling with mental health.

Although working with people of all ages, more than 80 per cent of those Beechbrae engages with are under 18 and from disadvantaged areas.