Our Charitable Foundation celebrates a successful year of charitable giving

April 2022 marked a significant milestone in our 160-year history as we launched our Leek Building Society Charitable Foundation. As a member-owned, mutual organisation, our Charitable Foundation was set up to achieve a key part of our purpose – to make a positive difference to the local communities that we serve.

Now celebrating its first birthday, our Foundation highlights its achievements over the last 12 months, including approving grants totalling over £20,000 to 13 local charities and community groups.

Through donations and grants, our Foundation has been able to support a variety of projects, from youth groups to environmental initiatives, and from health and wellbeing programmes to local cultural events.

To commemorate its birthday, Tim Edwards, Chair of the Leek Building Society Charitable Foundation, said:

“We’re delighted to be celebrating our first birthday and the success we’ve had in supporting the local community at such an important time. It's been a pleasure to issue grants to support so many worthwhile projects and we look forward to continuing our support to create positive change in the area.”

To highlight how our Charitable Foundation has helped to create positive change and make a difference in the community, Sandra Sherratt, Project Development Officer at Dyslexia Association of Staffordshire, said:

“Last year, we received a donation from the Society’s Charitable Foundation to help towards our support to local people. So far, we’ve been able to utilise their grant by holding more than 40 individual sessions, including free dyslexia assessments for unemployed people. Both adults and children have benefitted by learning more about support needs and improving their literacy skills and coping strategies which has a lasting benefit for learning and in developing careers.”

Biddulph Youth & Community Zone also received a grant from our Foundation for their ongoing garden project in 2022, and shared the progress they’ve made so far.

“Our garden is a community driven project, with volunteers at the heart of planning and developing it so its accessible to everyone,” said Sharon Middling from the community group. “Thanks to the funding from the Foundation, we’ve managed to buy all the timber for the wheelchair friendly raised beds and plan on building these over the next few months. We’re trialling a solar panelled irrigation system to help during the summer months to water our crops. The purchase of more garden tools has also been a huge help as we now have more tools to go around, so volunteers can carry out more jobs together.”

We’ve formed some key relationships with those we’ve supported so far across our Heartlands and look forward to keeping the momentum going as we enter our second year of charitable giving.

For more information about our Charitable Foundation and how to apply for a grant, visit https://www.leekbs.co.uk/charitable-foundation/.