SHED is part of Community Roots in West Kilbride which also runs the Village Larder, a subsidised food with dignity project. We have a community garden in the center of West Kilbride and host a drop-in social gardening day once a week there. We have been developing this garden for fruit and vegetable growing so that we can learn how to grow food whilst recognising the mental and physical health benefits of gardening together. Most of what we produce goes to our Village Larder to be accessed for free by our customers there, and some of it is a healthy reward for our hard working volunteers. Our aims are to make healthy food more accessible and create a buzz in the area about the benefits to our health and environment by growing our own food.  In the upcoming year we want to further develop our Community Garden and facilitate food growing in people's own gardens by providing materials, plants and practical support. We trialed offering some plants to our Village Larder customers this summer with great success and think that we can advertise and distribute well from there, with additional advertising of the project on our social media platforms and contacts. We think this will build our connections with people in WK and be the start of a rolling project over the seasons with continual support and materials offered. People will be asked when signing up f they prefer large trugs, 15litre potted veg gardens, or pop up fabric planters and what plants they want to grow from a list. We will have cards to give out with info on growing each plant, fertiliser for the season, canes and ties etc. They will be invited to sow the seeds in our polytunnel on drop in days to see where it all begins and this will introduce people to our growing community. This project will be especially useful for people who aspire to grow but don't know where to start, people who can't afford things like soil and fertiliser to sustain crops once established (which is expensive, expanding education on food and its origins, and people who are not able to access the drop in sessions that are keen to connect and grow. 

SeaSalt Streets have, as part of their vision, a longing to bring life and vitality into Saltcoats and in particularly to the heart of the town centre. We have successfully completed most of the vision created by the group, a vision inspired through extensive public consultation with members of the local community and beyond. One part of the initial vision remains unfulfilled -- the use of pop-up events as a means of building community spirit and ownership, a series of "different" one-off events to inspire others to think out of the box and to bring people into the town centre thereby stimulating economic growth. The events will also be used as an opportunity for SeaSalt Streets to showcase their group, it's vision for the future and as a recruitment tool for new members.

3TFM broadcasts programmes to the 3 Towns and beyond, from its base at the Frank Sweeney building in Ardrossan.  We would like to upgrade some of our studio equipment to enable us to interview guests live on air, and to prerecord interviews.  This would enable us to expand on our health and wellbeing output by producing more programmes containing health and wellbeing features with advice and information from local experts, and stories from local people.

Creating wellbeing cafes across North Ayrshire for people living iwth dementia and their unpaid carer to acess support and companionship. 

BABCA would like to organise a Country and western Social evening to try and get older people and adults back into the way of attending social events in Towerlands Community Centre.We would like to organise a free evening event to encourage people to socialise. People have got in to the way of staying in their houses during covid we would like to invite people in the local area to an evening of Country music with a live band. We woud like to turn the centre into the wild west providing an evening of live music with a theme. This community event would bring people together and help people who have been social isolated meet new friends.  

We are looking for funding to help support our Community Larder, which will be 3 years old come November, initially launch as a food bank during COVID and later developing to the Larder model. The funding would be used to purchase an additional upright glass fronted freezer, Countertop Food Display Unit, for the free pastries we receive, lable maker, and Individual Aprons / fleece for our volunteers.

The newly created Skelmorlie Community Garden space is looking beautiful. We would like to install a little library for book sharing in the community, to increase use of the garden.

West Kilbride Village Gala is an annual event that has been running for over 60 years and provides an opportunity to bring the community of West Kilbride together. We hire in a variety of fun equipment and rides and offer reduced cost wristbands for unlimited use to ensure that these are accessible to all regardless of financial situation.  The Gala provides the people of West Kilbride with an opportunity to socialise and enjoy themselves, promoting community cohesion, health and wellbeing and tackling social isolation.

In addition to the fun equipment and rides there are a range of stalls e.g., tea room, bbq, bottle stall, cake and candy, bric-a-brac, hook a duck and lucky dip and much more.  These activities take place in two large marquees, which require to be stored throughout the year.  We are seeking funding to purchase storage cages for the marquees (which are also used by other community groups), storage boxes and ground mats.  As the storage cages are on wheels this will allow easier transport of the marquees.