Eighty-seven community groups and sports teams will receive a little over $308,000 when Council distributes its community grants this month.

The grants were approved as part of the Long Term Plan adopted by Council last week.

The recipients include rural libraries, agencies like Hospice Mid Canterbury and the Ashburton Toy Library, and groups running projects, community events, biodiversity projects, improving infrastructure like halls and heritage buildings and providing school holiday programmes, and sports teams travelling for regular competition.

The biggest category was community agencies, where 17 groups received a collective $77,750.

Deputy mayor Liz McMillan said it was always a pleasure to be able to help groups in the community with money to keep their good work going.

“This funding might be to help kickstart a project or support operational costs or wages. Some groups are upgrading buildings like community halls and swimming pools, or making them nicer for users.

“The Fairton School pool is in desperate need of repair, so $10,000 was allocated to them, and $10,000 was also granted to the Ashburton District Neighbourhood Support to support the wages of those helping keep our community connected and safe.

“Most of the grant categories were oversubscribed this year and it would have been nice to help everyone. We see the great work being done by many volunteers and they all help make the Ashburton District a better place to live.”

Grant recipients have been advised and the full list will be available soon on Council’s website.

A second round of grants will open for applications from 1 August. Funding will be available for Creative Community projects, heritage projects and trail maintenance.

See our grants information here.