Mentoring Plus in Bath is celebrating today after being awarded £30,000 per year for the next five years in funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK.
Mentoring Plus will use its funding to support its volunteer mentoring project across Bath & North East Somerset. Funding will enable the charity to recruit, train and support more adult volunteers to mentor young people in need of early help, offering time and space to explore difficulties and follow their positive interests.
This new National Lottery funding will enable the charity to meet high demand for volunteer mentoring; last year it supported over 100 local young people with one-to-one volunteer mentoring. These people include Jacob, who explained, “Someone is there if anything happened. It’s helped me get better at school. Before I was quite naughty – now I’m a lot better in and out of school.”
National Lottery players raise over £30 million a week for good causes across the UK. The National Lottery Community Fund distributes a share of this to projects to support people and communities to prosper and thrive.
Ruth Keily, CEO of Mentoring Plus, said, “Thanks to National Lottery players, this grant means that we can mentor more young people, offering an individualised service and give them hope for their future. This will make a big difference to local young people’s lives.”
During the pandemic, in 2020 alone, The National Lottery Community Fund distributed almost £1 billion to charities and community organisations across the UK.
To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk