Round 10 Telstra Country Wide Ballarat Community Fund Grants

Today’s 10th round of grants supports six local organisations and adds to the growing list of recipients who have now shared in around $350,000 from the Telstra Country Wide Ballarat Community Fund established with The Ballarat Foundation.

Noel Trengove, CEO of The Ballarat Foundation, said “This is a very special relationship we have with Telstra Country Wide, working with a national company at a local level to put funds back into the community that supports Telstra’s business. Today’s grants are very worthy projects touching a wide range of pro-active and preventative measures of community interest.”

“The grants are being presented at Vision Australia ’s Ballarat facility, a grant recipient itself in this round. We enjoy being able to take the community to the recipient venues for the presentations as it gives the community a perspective on what community organisations are doing; not normally seen or understood by those not directly involved.”

The six grant recipients in this round are:

Vision Australia – Ballarat

The project funded is i-access, bridging the information divide.

With just 5% of information available in an accessible format to a person with vision loss or a print disability, the simple pleasure of reading or catching up on national and local news and current affairs can be extremely daunting and a mammoth task.

With the advent of the digital age, technology advancements which aid those with vision impairment is moving forward rapidly, but in turn it is difficult for individuals and organisations such as Vision Australia to meet the costs of purchase of this latest technology.

I-access uses Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY), a portable play back device to convert text into a synthesised voice to enable a vision impaired person to access written information. Up to 50 hours of information can be stored on a single CD.

This grant will provide for 10 DAISY Playback devices for use by Clients in Ballarat, filling a void in their lives and bringing them a major step closer to having the same level of information access as those that don’t have to deal with vision impairment.

This grant is for $4,500.

St Patrick’s College

A number of local street parades and an invitation to play the national anthem at each medal presentation ceremony at the 2011 Australian National Cycling Titles has been the incentive to develop a ‘Marching Band’ engaging students at the college. A Marching Band provides for larger participation rate than say the existing Concert band or Symphony Orchestra, but involves the purchase of some special equipment needs.

This is especially true in regard to drums and this grant will provide for Drums and harness and the drum major’s mace.

We congratulate St Patrick’s College marching band and look forward to hearing the results of this grant at community events into the future.

The value of this grant is $1,500.

The Wendouree Branch of Central Highlands Regional Library Corporation

Did you know that research shows that children need to hear 1000 books read aloud prior to attending school?

Through weekly sessions of story-telling, rhyme and song; the library promotes early childhood literacy and reading. These programs cover Baby rhyme for children to 18 months and pre school story telling for children 18 months to 4 years.

This funding will purchase puppets and musical equipment that staff can use to enhance and bring to life story times and story telling. These aids will improve language acquisition and vocabulary development for toddlers who will be able to hear spoken language around them, learning by repetition; Learn about the different sounds of spoken language; explore rhythm; learn the letters of the alphabet and listen to books read aloud.

As much as assisting the children the Wendouree Library has a role to educate parents on the importance of reading to their children; to provide parents with a story telling model by watching and listening to story-tellers read aloud and to encourage parents and children to borrow library resources to meet that 1000 book goal.

This grant is for $1,065.

Sebastopol College

The RACV Energy Breakthrough has been held in Maryborough each November for many, many years and the benefits to students from working together as a team to build prepare and then race their particular energy saving vehicles are well known.

Sebastopol College is joining this growing group of schools and is entering the 2010 event with a tricycle pedal powered vehicle.

Aimed particularly at students who might otherwise become disengaged at school, this activity is a means of stimulating these students’ interest and enthusiasm for such a project which sits outside the mainstream nature of the school curriculum.

This funding will cover the cost of a second hand tricycle, whilst the students will do further fundraising to cover the costs associated with entering and attending the event.

We wish the students well in their endeavours and aside from anything else, know that they will have fun.

The grant being presented today is for $2,800

McCallum Disability Support Services

For three years McCallum has run a successful gardening program. The Ballarat Foundation has previously supported McCallum gardening programs with a Community Grant in 2007.

The clients successfully grow a variety of vegetables, herbs and flowering plants, selling produce and utilizing profits to purchase more seeds and so on.

The clients successfully utalise the produce in their cooking programs to cook nutritious soups and casseroles enhancing their understanding of healthy food and diet.

This grant is to fund a potting shed, mini greenhouse and other tools allowing people to participate year round.

The grant being presented today is for $975

Child and Family Services

CAFS has recently moved into a specialised unit in Sherrard Street for the purpose of providing supported live-in short term accommodation for young families who can benefit from the Parenting Assessment and Skills Development Services provided by CAFS.

This service is so vital as it works with and trains parents through example in handling issues and circumstances, in particular parenting skills, which parents would normally struggle to manage. This is truly a means of prevention and is pro-actively undertaken with assessed families with an aim to avoid a later tragedy.

This grant will fund vital Play and nursery equipment for the residential facility.

The grant being presented today is for $4,920