The latest round of grants from the Lloyds TSB Foundation and Lottery Awards for All, have benefited children, pensioners, the homeless and even volunteer ambulance drivers, as DEBBIE WAITE found out.

FUNDRAISER Shirley Lee has been busily painting in the finishing touches to the new kitchen and disabled loo at Bradenstoke Village Hall just one of many north Wiltshire projects to enjoy a much-needed cash grant from the Lloyds TSB Foundation for England and Wales.

The hall is the focal point for the village, especially for its large elderly community, but it has been in desperate need of improvement.

Mrs Lee told how the £500 grant from the Foundation, along with tireless fund-raising by locals, has helped transform the hall into a facility fit for the future.

"The building is so old, dating from 1878, that when we found out about the changes we needed to make to bring it in line with the new Disabled Persons Act, it was a bit daunting," she said

"Of course we had the age of the building to consider and the fact that it is in a conservation area has made planning more technical, but I cannot believe how the village has rallied around.

"We've had horse racing nights and cheese and wine parties and so many other fundraisers and as a result we've gradually made our changes, including building the kitchen extension, putting in new windows and a hearing loop, lowering power points and finally, with the help of this grant, installing a toilet for disabled people."

Mrs Lee said: "We have several big bungalow parks here, housing a lot of elderly people, so the hall is used for whist, keep fit classes, bowls, functions everything really, for all ages.

"It's also used as the village doctor's surgery once a week. It really is the heart of our village and I'm just so proud that our own fundraising and applications for grants have enabled us to transform the hall in this way."

Other beneficiaries receiving money in the latest round of grants from the Lottery Awards for All programme this month include Compton Bassett Village Hall, which received £5,000 towards the £30,000 it needs for improvements. The hall houses a popular youth club and Compton Hall Amateur Dramatic Society.

Wiltshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust's 110 volunteer drivers will receive high visibility jackets and badges, thanks to a grant for £3,295 from the Lottery Awards for All.

Chris Marsden, Patient Transport Service general manager for the Trust, said: "These jackets will be used by all our drivers to improve their visibility when picking up and dropping off patients."

And Wootton Bassett Bowls Club is also a winner after receiving a £4,850 Lottery grant, which will enable members to install new disabled access and to purchase a special wheelchair for disabled players.

For more information on the Lloyds TSB Foundation for England and Wales visit www.lloydstsbfoundations. org.uk.

For an information pack on applying for Lottery Awards for All grants, call 0846 6002040 or log on to www.awardsforall.org.uk.

Pre-school and homeless centre benefit

Benefiting from not one, but two grants, is the Benger Bears Pre-school, which uses the village hall in Sutton Benger.

Linda Bragg, chairman of the committee of the preschool which has been running since 1978, explained how money from Lloyds TSB and the Lottery Awards for All programme has been a life-saver in a difficult year.

"At the beginning of the year we thought we may have had to cut the number of sessions we ran in the first term because of reduced numbers of children," said Mrs Bragg.

"But we really wanted to avoid doing that because our two assistants, Karen Evans and Paula Green, needed a certain number of sessions to complete their NVQ training.

"We applied for grants from both organisations to help us and were awarded both, which has been great.

"The £870 grant from Lloyds TSB has covered the cost of the assistants' salaries, so we did not have to reduce the sessions, and this week, Karen Evans passed her NVQ level 2," said Mrs Bragg.

"The £614 grant from Awards from All has been an added bonus because we have been able to buy a fabulous new sand and water table for the children and a gazebo, which can be used inside and out.

"Our previous sand box could only be used on the floor, but this one is at table level and the children love it," she explained.

"We will be writing to the organisations who gave us the awards to thanks them for the huge help they have given us this year."

The first drop-in day centre for homeless people in north Wiltshire, housed in the Salvation Army headquarters in Foghamshire, Chippenham, has also enjoyed a windfall to the tune of £13,000 from the Lloyds TSB Foundation.

The Homeless Project opened on January 5 to give people without a proper home a place to get warm, eat a meal, do their laundry and get support and advice.

Open two half-days a week for a two-year trial period, it was set up by the Salvation Army, the Chippenham Voluntary Service and North Wiltshire District Council, with community and voluntary agencies.

A group of eight volunteers help to run the centre and six more volunteers are expected to join soon.

Manager Margaret Cleverly said: "The grant has been a fantastic boost and is being used over two years to pay our volunteers' expenses and training costs it's really enabled us to get up and running."