THE trustees of the United Okehampton Charity have reported a busy first half of the year, having approved grants totalling £114,318 to community groups.

Meanwhile, sister charity the Okehampton Educational Foundation has made grants of £17,500 to Okehampton College towards its IT Curriculum Support and Sports Transport projects.

It has also helped individual students in Okehampton and the Hamlets take up post-16 educational opportunities not available in Okehampton. Over the 2017/18 academic year the charity has supported 130 young people with bursaries totalling £84,300.

Okehampton United Charity, which supports groups, organisations and individuals based in Okehampton and the Hamlets, has awarded awarded £114,318 to 23 groups.

These include £2,500 to Okehampton United Ecclesiastical Charity towards the upkeep of St James’s Chapel; £2,000 towards Okehampton College’s wind turbine; £3,460 to Okehampton PADs for providing community defibrillators; £9,500 to Wren Music for the town’s lantern procession; £2,200 to the Friends of Okehampton Library and £7,672.70 to the Okehampton Men in Sheds project. 

The Ockment Centre, Okehampton Remembers and Adventure 7, run by Okehampton Rotary Club, have all been awarded grants of £10,000. OkeRail Forum has been awarded a loan of £26,815 to help it run the 2018 programme of trains from Okehampton. 

Further grants have been awarded as follows: DYS Space £4,750, Tors Support Services £8,877, ACOT £6,500, Multicultural Okehampton £200, Okehampton Play Reading Group £300, Okehampton Community Archive £650, Okement Rivers Improvement Group (ORIG) £999, Open Arms £500, Okehampton Running Club £735, All Saints’ Parish Church seated sanctuary area £932, Fairplace Church £540, the Mary Budding Trust £187 and Chaos Muay Thai Gym and Fitness Centre £6,000. The trustees have also awarded nine individual crisis grants so far in 2018.

Okehampton United Charity also offer grants to individuals under the age of 25 for sport and art projects. 

The charity has recently introduced an Ambassador’s Award for groups, organisations or individuals who are advancing citizenship and community development within Okehampton and the Hamlets. 

The two charities were set up to help people living in Okehampton and the Hamlets more than 100 years ago. In more recent years their coffers have been topped up by the proceeds of the sale of land owned by the charity for housing development. The trustees consider grant applications each month.

Find out more at www.okehamptoncharities.org.uk or by calling clerk Karen Percival on 01837 55179.