South East 4×4 Response, are celebrating being awarded £10,000 in National Lottery funding to support our work with providing voluntary assistance to emergency services, communities, Kent County Council and other agencies, particularly in time of adverse weather and when resources are stretched. Based in Kent, we have used the money to replace our pre-existing response trailer with two new trailers and equipment.
We have been serving the community since 2008 and currently has approximately 75 volunteer members. We primarily cover Kent and Medway, although we work closely with our neighbouring 4×4 Response groups in Sussex and Surrey.
The group have now procured two new trailers which are being fitted out with relevant emergency equipment, along with purchasing a new matching wrap for our pre-existing events trailer.
This funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest community funder in the UK, will see our new trailers in use when we are called on to attend emergency community situations such as flooding or tree removal following inclement weather conditions.
At the same time the group will be able to continue to bring to the public’s attention the work we do when attending large community events with our events trailer.
South East 4×4 Response CEO, David Mills, says “We’re delighted that The National Lottery Community Fund has recognised our work in this way. Now, thanks to National Lottery players, we have been able to replace some very tired equipment allowing us to provide quality assistance to the local community. In addition, we have been able to fit out the trailers with much needed equipment to further expand the services we can offer to the community, and we have wrapped them with our corporate colours and logos, making them instantly recognisable to the public and our partner groups. We are immensely grateful to the National Lottery for their invaluable support to our group.
The National Lottery Community Fund recently launched its new strategy, ‘It starts with community’, which will underpin its efforts to distribute at least £4 billion of National Lottery funding by 2030.
As part of this, the funder has four key missions, which are to support communities to come together, be environmentally sustainable, help children and young people thrive and enable people to live healthier lives.
National Lottery players raise over £30 million a week for good causes across the UK. Thanks to them, last year The National Lottery Community Fund was able to distribute over half a billion pounds (£615.4 million) of life-changing funding to communities.
To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk