We can provide for up to 12 participants at every cooking class event, in addition to a cook station for the chef to instruct the class with assistance of our staff with a fully equipped commercial kitchen also to support the event.

The facility provides a fantastic environment for cooking lessons to assist with the cost of living with tasty, fresh and cost effective meals, each of our meals prepared cost less than £1 with an average of 81p per portion

• Facility costs = £1500 (providing 15 classes for 180 participants)
• Ingredients & Chef Instructor for 15 classes = £2500 
• Slow Cookers (x12) & Air Fryers (x12) = £750
• Marketing promotion with online cooking videos by chef & tote bags = £250

We would like to host a community dinner for the wider Irvine locality with the aim to bring all the local groups representatives together and to conduct a discussion and survey to record what they feel the current issues are facing older people across Irvine.

The dinner will feature a keynote speaker on a topic related to current issues.

Breakdown:

• Hall hire £68.90
• Catering £800
• Table Settings, invitations & Decoration £100

Choices Community Shop currently has over 500+ households registered to access a food with dignity approach to addressing food insecurity in the local area. With an equal divide of families, couples and single people, the cost of cooking food is a worry for everyone. With winter approaching and the cost of living ongoing, many households have told us that they are worried about whether they will be able to heat and cook this year. 

Choices Community Shop would therefore like to purchase food and containers to be able to prepare healthy, nutricious "ready meals" that households can take as part of the offer within the food larder. These meals will be suitable for heating in a microwave thus reducing the households cooking costs.

Food for meals: £800

Food Safe Containers: £200

We hope to purchase overheads to ensure we can deliver the best She Shed possible and help improve mental health and wellbeing through providing a safe space including the opportuntiy to be involved in group activities.

• Public Liability Insurance £160
• Room Hire £336
• Tea, coffee drinks and buscuits £100
• Craft Materials £274
• Branded Items £100
• Table Cover £30

We are keen to enhance the dog owning experience on the island by providing agility training for all ages and abilities. This will help with social isolation (group work), build confidence by helping people train their dogs, help with physical exercise and coordination. This is in addition to our current work with owners, puppies and older dogs. Some of our members are mobility impaired, elderly and live alone. We have Kennel Club trainers from mainland North Ayrshire who regularly assist us.

The funding would be spent as follows:-

£800 on Dog Agility equipment:

• Aluminium Jump £90
• Tyre Jump £395
• Tunnel £255 
• We have been advised that delivery will be approx £200

£200 for a storage facility.

Our project aims to save an at-risk collection of documents donated to Kilwinning Heritage from the former Hugh King & Sons solicitor's office on Howgate. The building was also formerly a bank, and the collection contains around 20,000 documents from the bank and solicitors offices. The documents have been very poorly kept and require intensive cleaning to save them and record any information we can gather. We will clean and record these archive documents which will be available for future research into the people of Kilwinning.

The project will be led by a team of volunteers and will be trained by staff from Ayrshire Archives on how to safely and accurately clean and record these documents. The volunteers will benefit from the project on a personal level as there is a good cohesion in our volunteer team and any new volunteers will be welcomed. Some of our volunteers benefit from the project as it gets them out the house and taking part in an activity which is very beneficial for them due to the relaxing nature of the project and repetitiveness of the tasks. This reduces their risk of social isolation and increases their skills by getting training and brings people together.

Building community spirit is also a key part of the project as the information gathered from the archive could provide a new insight to the history of Kilwinning and some of the unique individuals who once lived in the town. We intend to make the archive available for any future members of Kilwinning Heritage and the public where appropriate to inform research and future projects involving the history of the town. We hope that all the volunteers involved in the project will work collaboratively and we will provide social opportunities for them to network and make new friends/ develop relationships in the community.

Breakdown of costs;

£250 - scan tent  £300 - archive boxes £400 - mobile phone for scanning £50 - external hard drive 

This project aims to create a community carousel in partnership with HSCP Carers Team, Youth Services, and KA Leisure to create opportunities within each locality. This will provide a family respite opportunity for unpaid carers accessing the service, or for individuals who may require support in benefit advice, education support, funding, carer support plans or a listening ear as we understand how demanding being an unpaid carer can be. This project will initially be rolled out in seldom-heard communities such as Garnock Valley and North Coast where we aim to provide support within our capacity to unpaid carers along with a fun day out for families to access activities and information based on their needs and abilities. This project will provide an opportunity to tackle isolation, food poverty, and fuel poverty by giving carers a safe, warm space to use for the day where they can bring their cared for, and also access a meal and refreshments along with the company of Carers Centre staff and partners.

North Coast Locality cost breakdown: (250), arts and crafts supplies for young and adult carers - 100, food provisions - 150

Three Town Locality cost breakdown: (250), arts and crafts supplies for young and adult carers - 100, food provisions - 150

Garnock Valley Locality cost breakdown: (250), arts and crafts supplies for young and adult carers - 100, food provisions - 150

Irvine Locality cost breakdown: (250), arts and crafts supplies for young and adult carers - 100, food provisions - 150