Thanks to funding from Rochdale Borough Council’s Public Health team, Action Together offered small grants of up to £5,000 or £8,000 for VCFSE organisations to provide Wider Essentials to individuals and communities within the Rochdale Borough.
The fund priorities were co-produced by a group of representatives from the Anti-Poverty Network, Welfare Advice Forum, Food Solutions Forum, Ethnic Communities Network and the Digital Inclusion Forum.
Projects funded via the Wider Essentials Fund, Round 3:
| Member Organisation | Amount Awarded | Investment Projects |
| North West Community Connection | £3,231 | Supporting people from Rochdale’s ethnic communities prepare for and pass the Life in the UK test. This is an important step for anyone applying for British citizenship, but it can be difficult—especially for those who face language barriers or can’t afford study materials or internet access. We want to make this easier by offering Life in the UK Test Handbook, support sessions, and resources in different languages. It’s all about helping people feel confident, informed, and included. |
| Awakening Minds | £5,623 | We want to extend warmth, dignity, and essential comfort to those struggling in silence , families quietly choosing between heating and food, individuals without the means to cook a warm meal, and those unable to afford basic toiletries. |
| Brentwood Day Centre | £2,100 | To set up a project that can supply basic ID and help with communication items, cheap mobile etc and so help with accessing local services, as we already provide hot food and drink and laundry and bathing facilities all free of charge, this project would help all the people of Rochdale, including Middleton access to main stream services and help renew their roots in the local area and help to get housing and relief of Homelessness and help keep their tenancies. |
| Hope Football Club | £4,921 | Supporting players and coaching staff (all volunteers) covering travel costs helps them with day-to-day travel. Funding and assisting with obtaining provisional driving licenses, and other forms of identification is crucial for facilitating access to essential services. Providing toiletries. Support with food parcels or supermarket gift vouchers. Supplying team kit for the players, such as shirts, socks, shorts, and astro trainers. |
| Uniform For All | £8,000 | Our project is to help families and children who are struggling financially to afford school uniform. Blazers can cost up to £90 each for schools and a family with three children can spend up to £1000 when kitting out a family for school uniform, at approximately £345 each per child. Costs are rising continually and we recycle new and preloved uniform items to help those in need. |
| Darnhill Food Pantry | £7,996.36 | We will deliver this project as part of the ongoing food pantry – every Saturday from 12.15 – 2.20pm and also whenever we are called upon in an emergency for either food bags or White Goods or other household items /fuel top ups. We will continue to buy non food items on a monthly basis and include them in the offering to our users every week. We will ringfence money for White Goods as previously done and continue to use a local supplier who is very sympathetic and supportive to our pantry and delivers white goods at a discount whenever we need them. We will devise a new feedback form that we will ask the recipients of our non food items and white goods etc to complete after we have supported them – finding out the impact we have had and any learning opportunities that may arise. |
Al-abbas Institute | £600 | Support BAME and refugee families who are struggling within the Borough of Rochdale. Our idea/project aims to support our BAME and refugee communities in the following ways, to provide: 1) 60 children between the ages of 10-15 years with an IGO card each. It will enable these young people to travel from across the borough via buses and trams to our Centre to access much needed educational, transition from primary to high school and developmental workshops over the summer break (July and August). This IGO card will enable these young people from deprived and struggling BAME and refugee families to continue to use this card even after our summer programme. |
| Europia | £4,840 | Our project will remove urgent, systemic barriers preventing Gypsy, Roma, and Romanian residents in Rochdale from accessing essential services. By providing identification support and digital inclusion, we will reduce poverty, promote equity, and empower 150 individuals to access housing, healthcare, education, and employment. |
| Nigeria Community Association | £2,750 | The Community Essentials Support Programme is an initiative by the Nigeria Community Association to provide practical support that meets the immediate and basic needs of marginalized individuals, including refugees, asylum seekers, low-income families, and isolated individuals across Rochdale Borough. Our goal is to reduce hardship, support social integration, and enhance well-being by providing travel assistance, white goods, and other essential items to those in urgent need. This holistic intervention complements our existing community services such as our food bank, befriending services, sewing classes, and youth engagement programmes. |
Projects funded via the Wider Essentials Fund, Round 2:
| Member Organisation | Amount Awarded | Investment Projects |
| £3,360 | We will purchase 7 Adult bus passes that will last 28 days to allow 7 families to travel for free on the bus and access our service for a 6-month period. | |
| £4,500 | We will use the grant to run the Wider Winter Essentials project from November 2024 to the end of March 2025. We will distribute essential items, including microwaves (Curry’s Voucher – have taking initiative to engage with the store manager) toiletries, hot water bottles, woolly socks, and £50 cash support to 20 families, allowing them to spend it either on Halal food or towards gas/electricity. Our delivery will include volunteer drivers to distribute the items within a 5-mile radius, ensuring those who are unable to travel can still receive support. | |
| £5,000 | We will use this grant to provide white goods and furniture to those that are moving to Rochdale, Heywood and Middleton, so the fund which was already in place for Middleton will now be used further afield in the Borough of Rochdale. It will help people settle into new homes and help people sustain their tenancies, these include the homeless, those with disabilities and those in crisis and hardship. The person asking for the help will need to provide their tenancy agreement. We receive referrals from Rochdale Housing Solutions, Rochdale Homelessness, Riverside Housing, Petrus and Stepping Stones supported accommodation, Adult Social Services and anybody leaving care. We will use the money to grant those in need a Blossom Project Voucher for white goods and/or furniture depending on need. The voucher will be for a single item or other items up to £500 – this will help them resettle in the Middleton/Rochdale area, and also introduce them to our service and help them to get Housing, debt, benefits advice and use our computer suite to get access to their housing, Benefits jobs and welfare rights and access computer training. | |
Darnhill Food Pantry | £5,000 | We will use the funding in two ways:
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Family Action | £2,545 | We will use the grant to purchase a range of toiletries and hygiene products which our FOOD Club staff and volunteers will distribute for free to members and their families throughout the grant period. We will consult with members throughout the project to meet any ongoing/emerging needs, but from our prior knowledge of our members and our previous experience we expect the following items are likely to be most needed:
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£2,280 | The grant will be used to purchase toiletries and hygiene products to deliver straight to our service users. We will deliver this service from our common room as all the service user who access our service pass through this room. This will be done throughout the day on a daily basis. The service will be delivered by volunteers and staff members who are allocated to the common room each day to offer support and advice to service users. The products that we obtain will be displayed within the common room so that service can choose what they need. | |
| £5,000 | We will use the grant to deliver our 'Community Essentials Support Program', providing immediate relief to vulnerable individuals and families in the Rochdale Borough. The program will address critical needs in three key areas: travel support, provision of white goods, and other essential items such as clothing and hygiene products. | |
£5,000 | The budget will allow us to keep a healthy stockpile of items that our service users can take away with them as and when they need and to purchase items in response to need. At the present time we are reliant on donations and whilst this would not substitute donations, (we would continue to actively promote donations made to the service) it would enable us to support people proactively and quickly respond to needs as they arise, as opposed to what we have available at the time. It would include an offer available for the following items that are regularly requested, such as:
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£3,304 | We will use the grant to regularly stock the Dale Food Pantry with sanitary products, and provide these in Rochdale AFC toilets for both our community participants, and those attending Rochdale AFC and Rochdale Hornets match days at the Crown Oil Arena to access discreetly without fear of stigma or embarrassment. By placing these products in key locations around the stadium and our facilities, we aim to create an inclusive environment where people feel supported and their dignity is upheld. Whether they are attending a match or participating in one of our community programmes, we want everyone to have access to the essential items they need. This expanded offering will help to ensure that no one is left behind, and further solidify our commitment to combating period poverty within the Rochdale community. We will also run two period poverty campaigns during the grant duration, on period poverty to raise awareness. | |
Help4All | £5,000 | The Project will employ a dedicated worker through Help4All for 14 hours per week to manage the weekly orders from groups, the order to The Brick, manage the donation on the day, separating all the products into piles for the groups to collect, deliver to groups who are unable to collect the delivery, trips to The Brick for additional donations, trips to other organisations who have donated products. The funding will also be used for fuel for the Help4All van to collect goods and distribute to groups who are unable to collect. |
Projects funded via the Wider Essentials Fund:
| Member Organisation | Amount Awarded | Investment Projects |
| £960 | This project will support BAME older people aged over 50 with:
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Kirkholt Pantry | £990 | Over the last twelve months we have had a large request for cleaning products. Our members have told us they struggle to buy cleaning items as they cost so much, and buying these impacts on their weekly food budget. For the last two months we have consulted our members to ask what cleaning products they would like help with, and what products would be the most beneficial. The consultation has been contucted via word of mouth and feedback forms. Following this consultation we have agreed this funding would be used to put together 90 Pantry Cleaning Packs. The packs will contain: washing up liquid, bleach, clothes fabric softener, washing pads and clothes washing liquid. The items will be sourced from local retailers. The cost to make these packs is £10.90. |
| £1,000 | We propose a community project aimed at empowering residents by offering life coaching sessions, covering travel expenses, and financing essential identification documents such as passports and driving licenses. This initiative, already successfully implemented by Maverick Lab, will be expanded to reach more individuals, ensuring broader access to critical services that enhance personal and professional development. | |
| £1,000 | The Rochdale Essentials Support Program is designed to provide essential items such as clothing, toiletries, hygiene products, and cleaning supplies to individuals and families in need within the Rochdale Borough. By addressing these fundamental needs, the project seeks to alleviate the burden of poverty and enhance the quality of life for vulnerable community members. The program is committed to offering crucial support to those facing financial hardship, including low-income families, the elderly, single parents, refugees, asylum seekers, and individuals experiencing homelessness. | |
| £1,000 | RADAR provides short term housing for three destitute asylum seekers in a property close to the centre of Rochdale - The Presbytery. They have 'no recourse to public funds' and the only income they have is a weekly grant of £25 each from RADAR . They are in the process of making fresh claims to the Home Office for leave to remain in the UK. This involves regular contact with the solicitors acting for them and preparing the relevant documents. Currently the property does not have any internet connection which makes communication and transfer of documents difficult. They have to use remote access via their mobile phones which is expensive. We are seeking funding to install broadband in the property, and fund its ongoing operation. Internet access will also enhance their wellbeing and enable them to do online courses, and search for volunteering opportunities. We would also like to help them with cost of their mobile phone credit. | |
| £990 | Our local pantry, Smallbridge, is a food members club run by volunteers and set up by local people in 2019 to tackle food poverty in our community. We are situated on the outskirts of the borough on a large social housing estate consisting of family housing, flats and bungalows for older residents. Many of our members are living on benefits and are struggling with the increase in the cost of living that is hitting everyone but affects those on lower incomes even more. This project ensures people are being fed. The pantry goes beyond tackling food poverty. Over the last twelve months our members have asked for help and support with cleaning items as these items are very costly and take a huge amount from their weekly spending budget. For the last twomonths we have consulted with our members to ask what cleaning products they would like help with, and what products would be the most beneficial. The consultation has been contucted via word of mouth and feedback forms. Following this consultation we have agreed this funding would be used to put together 90 Pantry Cleaning Packs. The packs will contain: washing up liquid, bleach, clothes fabric softener, washing pads ,and clothes washing liquid. The items will be sourced from local retailers. The cost to make these packs is £10.90. | |
St Vincent's SVP Conference | £830.99 | Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Cras consequat, urna ac viverra posuere, nisi mi vehicula tortor, et efficitur massa est vitae leo. Sed vulputate sem a metus sodales, nec posuere magna tempus. |
| £930 | We will offer various wellbeing activities:
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| £1,000 | Our project recycles school uniform, sport clothing, shoes, bags and accessories across Rochdale, Littleborough, Heywood and Middleton. Collecting in donations via our 16 libraries and distributing over 10,000 items of school uniform per year. We are in our fourth year and have charity status and a website. We have seen the rise in demand to help families across our Borough in this economic climate. We have many families needing school shoes and sports trainers, currently 18 waiting for their shoe size to come in. This funding would really help us to be able to get them what they need now, as a good pair of shoes are crucial for each day and keeping feet healthy is important too in young people as they grow. | |
| £1,000 | With this grant, we want to improve our coffee morning sessions at the Lighthouse in Middleton. We aim to create a wellbeing program for BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) women. We will focus on mental and emotional health, building a supportive community, and providing essential wellbeing services. | |
| £1,000 | The Caring and Sharing Transport Support Project aims to provide essential transport assistance to individuals and families struggling to attend our weekly mental and social support sessions. We are requesting £1,000 in funding to help cover the increasing costs faced by our organisation and attendees. The funds will be allocated to cover the fuel costs for our minibus, ensuring we can continue offering this vital service. Additionally, the funds will be used to reimburse bus tickets, tram tickets, and occasional taxi fares for participants who have difficulty accessing our services. |