<p>We have established a steering group made up of friends and family of residents, we hope to provide chances for residents get out of their houses make new firends and decrease social isolation.&nbsp;</p>

<p>After leading Arran to be the first Scottish Community to gain&nbsp;&#39;plastic free&#39; status by reducing plastic entering our sea&nbsp;TAP now seek to engage a wider community&nbsp;and those new to Arran to join together to reduce unnecessary plastic.</p>

<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Choices Community Shop, based in the heart of Irvine, offers food with dignity to local people who are facing food insecurity due to the cost of living crisis. This fund would allow us to prepare healthy, nutricious &quot;ready meals&quot; for individuals removing the worry of the cost of cooking. Given that winter is approaching, families will have to choose whether to heat or cook and by having this offer, it lessens the stress of the worry.</span></span></span></p>

<p>At North Ayrshire Carers Centre we provide a tailored service for unpaid young and adult carers across the locality, we support individuals and families through their caring roles and provide a listening ear, support services, advice, and peer support groups. Not only this, we aim to support all unpaid carers within each locality within North Ayrshire, through locality events and drop-in support groups for carers. Within our service, we recognise the unseen roles and responsibilities unpaid carers take on for&nbsp;a relative, friend, or neighbor. Care can be provided in more simplistic ways such as helping with the weekly shop to cooking meals. Support is not restricted to physical care but can be also emotional support ranging from just giving a listening ear or taking care of their financial affairs or their own health.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;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.</p>

<p>We are a local community youth football team, seeking funding to help our team of 20 players continue with their enjoyment of playing football.</p>

<p>Stevenston North Community Assocation would like to offer all residents the opportunity to come together as a community and celebrate the joy and fun of Christmas without the worry of expense.&nbsp;</p> <p>To achieve this we would like to offer a Christmas movie night with a meal prior to the film and snacks and drinks during the film.&nbsp;</p>

<p>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.&nbsp; In the upcoming year we want to further develop our Community Garden and facilitate food growing in people&#39;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&#39;t know where to start, people who can&#39;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.&nbsp;</p>

<p>We are residents of Kyleshill Court in Saltcoats, we regularly take part in the David White Engagement Hub acitivities, we have formed a steering group and would like to apply for PB funding to enhance the opportunities on offer for residents.</p>