Saffron issues grants to local charities' projects for 2022

10 March 2022

- Saffron Building Society’s community grants for 2022 are announced totalling £19,327 for the year
- The grants are awarded to charitable organisations across the locations of the society branches including Essex, Hertfordshire, and the east of England.
- In 2021, Saffron’s community grant funding exceeded £100k in the last decade.

The Saffron Building Society Community Fund, working in partnership with the Essex Community Foundation, has been providing grants to charitable organisations for a decade as of 2021, totalling over £100,000 being donated to small projects that support the local communities of the mutual’s branches. It is announcing today that a further £19,237 is being awarded to nine local charities for 2022 – with the total to date now 64 since the fund began in 2001.

The charities who will benefit this year are:

Charity	Location	Purpose of Grant
Enterprise East Group CIC	Uttlesford	Supporting a social enterprise providing support to people facing barriers to employment
Ending Life’s Taboo	Colchester	A charity providing counselling and support to young adults with life limiting illness in Northeast Essex
Centre for Action on Rape and Abuse	Colchester	Financial support to provide counselling sessions for victims of sexual abuse across mid and North Essex
Bishops Stortford Mencap	Hertfordshire	To contribute to the support of west Essex beneficiaries with learning difficulties
African Families in the UK CIC	Colchester	Financial support for the youth work supporting people from African and other ethnic minority communities.
Thaxted Centre for the Disabled	Uttlesford	To help subsidise transport costs for disabled people to attend a day centre
Colchester Toy Library	Colchester	Financial support to help a small charity promoting the benefits of play for children including those with special needs
Uttlesford Buffy Bus Association	Uttlesford	To fund good quality play and educational activities for isolated and disadvantaged pre-school children, their families, and carers
REACH community project	Braintree	Funding to support residents in the north Braintree area who are experiencing hardship issues

Claire Hunnable, Community Business Partner at Saffron Building Society, commented: “After passing a massive milestone last year, this is yet another milestone being broken as this is the most we have issued in grants in a single year. The array of different charities that apply for the grants provides us with quite a challenge when choosing which to fund. The whole society are proud of the work that we have been able to fund over the last decade and beyond, helping the local communities to navigate some very difficult times. Following the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, our communities now face a cost of living crisis - worse than we have seen in a generation. Households are going to be more reliant on charities and community groups than ever before, and we hope – through the grants and with our hands on community projects – that we can make a difference and help our communities in these increasingly difficult times.”

Saffron Building Society provide community support in various forms from grants, to ‘hands on’ activities working with local, regional, and national charities to provide community support services to those who need it. For its members and local communities, the society also launched financial wellbeing calls to offer advice and guide people to appropriate support services during the pandemic. It has now confirmed, even with the lifting of most Covid restrictions, that these will continue in 2022 and beyond.

To find out more about the community work and the advice and support available from Saffron Building Society, free resources are available at https://www.saffronbs.co.uk/about/community/community.