Seventy-three community groups will receive a little over $263,000 when Council distributes its community grants this month.

Twenty-one sports teams will also receive $15,000 from the Sport NZ Rural Travel Fund to help cover the costs of travelling to regular competition.

The grants were approved as part of the Annual Plan, which comes into effect this month.

The recipients include rural libraries, agencies like Age Concern, St John and Connecting Mid Canterbury, as well as groups running projects, community events, biodiversity projects, looking after halls and heritage buildings, and providing school holiday programmes.

The biggest category was community agencies, where 18 groups received a collective $72,500.

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.

“The total fund was oversubscribed by a long way this year and we know some groups are finding it tough. We really value the work they do, much of it voluntary, and have tried to support as many as we can.”

Amongst the successful applicants this year were:

• Order of St John, $7500 to help run the health shuttle in Ashburton
• Ashburton Aviation Museum, $3500 to put towards two heat pumps in the function area of their new hangar
• Ashburton County Scottish Society, $4000 to help replace the old bar heaters in their hall on Creek Road with heat pumps
• The Tinwald Scout Group, $4368 to help build a new boundary fence
• Ashburton Indoor Bowls, $3000 to help towards the cost of providing padded chairs in its supper room

Ms McMillan said Council had also decided to double the amount given for school prizegivings, from $500 to $1000, and the district’s three secondary schools (Ashburton College, Mt Hutt College and the Ashburton Christian School) all benefited.

“It’s humbling to see the amount of work done by volunteers and groups over all the categories and they all want to make the Ashburton District a great place, whether it’s maintaining a bike trail, heating a community hall or running a school holiday programme.”

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

Applications for grants from the New Zealand Creative Community Scheme will open on 1 August. Find out more about the scheme, and all our other grants here.