A football club, churches and charities are set to benefit from more than £17,000 of grants from Runnymede Borough Council, after councillors approved a round of funding applications.
Abbey Rangers Football Club will use its grant to buy new kit, equipment and storage to expand the service it provides for up to 25 disabled children aged five to 11 every year over at least the next five years.
The club, which is in the Chertsey Riverside ward, was recognised earlier this year at the Council’s Civic Awards, when it was named as 2024 sports club of the year.
The grant funding means the well-loved local club can continue to support a wide section of the community.
Cllr Abby King, Chair of the Council’s Community Services Committee, which approved the grants, said: “It’s a priority for the Council to offer greater targeted support to sport and recreational activities for young people of all abilities and ages.
“The committee was pleased to support this application by Abbey Rangers FC and personally, I’m passionate about accessibility in sport and believe this will help level the playing field, so disabled young people and their families get the most out of the sport.
“This grant, along with other applications such as The Village Centre in Englefield Green’s cooking classes and St Paul’s Church in Egham Hythe’s plans for its youth space, was approved as part of our mission to ensure every young person feels included and supported in an activity they enjoy and thrive in.”
Nick Riley, Chairman of Abbey Rangers said: “This is such fantastic news! The Youth Development Fund managed by Runnymede Borough Council is an amazing resource to help organisations deliver their services to the local community, and I’m thrilled our grant application was approved.
“In 2023 Abbey Rangers re-launched our Pan Disability Team for five-11 year old boys and girls and it’s been incredibly well received with a great cohort of players coming to our training sessions every week. With this grant we can now provide the players with more training equipment plus their own training kit - this is so important when developing identity and culture for Pan Disability players - and most importantly it will enable us to expand the session to provide disability football to even more children.”
As well as Abbey Rangers, the following organisations received grant funding for a range of projects:
Home-Start Runnymede and Woking (based in Woking, provides services across Runnymede)
To increase the capacity of targeted, long-term support and intervention for vulnerable and complex families which children under the age five across the borough.
St Paul’s Church, Egham Hythe, (Egham Hythe ward)
Equipment and food for the youth space.
Your Sanctuary (Longcross, Lyne and Chertsey South ward)
With the support of White Lodge Centre, Your Sanctuary will run at least a once-a-week session where children have access to the indoor and outdoor play space, play activities for specialist schemes to ensure they are not missing out on meaningful activities and peer communication while waiting for appropriate education spaces.
The Village Centre (Englefield Green East ward)
To run seven free of charge cookery classes for local children.
The Hope Hub (Ottershaw ward)
Items to support the youth club, including craft items, food and wellbeing kits.
The Journey Church (Englefield Green West ward)
For food and associated activity costs for clubs run at The Hub such as gardening and dance.
All of the grants are due to come from the Council’s Youth Development Fund and are aimed at supporting organisations and activities which contribute to the health and wellbeing of younger residents in the borough.
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