(Updated 22/03/2024)
What is The Housing Support Fund?
The connect4communities programme manages a range of initiatives which aim to ensure that vulnerable families with children and individuals do not go without basic necessities such as food, fuel and warmth.
In collaboration with community partners, it is led by Hampshire County Council and Isle of Wight Council and funded by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education.
For enquiries from the IOW email: hsf@iow.gov.uk
Please find below the community grants that have been awarded through the DWP Household Support Fund (connect4communities).
Aspire Ryde
Location: All Island Offer of Support: Providing a series of 10 sessions on how to make your own baby food. Blenders and other equipment also provided. Delivered from their central hub in Ryde. Contact: 01983 716020
Approved Grant Value: £5,830
Aspire Rdye
Location All Island Offer of Support: Offering a course of cookery sessions showing how to make healthy meals using a slow cooker. All ingredients and slow cooker provided. Delivered from their central hub in Ryde. Contact: 01983 716020
Approved Grant Value: £12,757
Aspire Rdye
Location: All Island Offer of Support: Deliver several forms of support over the winter months including 400 precooked frozen meals to individuals unable to cook for themselves, in addition to 100 precooked frozen meals to families in need, ensuring they have a good quality, nutritionally balanced meal eachday. They will also provide 100 hampers, with a value of £20 each, containing essential items such as food, toiletries, sanitary products and essential household items. Their warm space will offer a hot drink and meal one day per week over the winter period to around 30 residents which will run alongside the provision of their Bags of Warmth scheme which would see100 residents provided with items such as hats, gloves, a thermal mug and hot water bottle helping to benefit recipients not only this winter but over winterfor several years. Contact: 01983 716020
Approved Grant Value: £9,000
Breakfast in the Bay
Location: Sandown, Shanklin & Ventnor Offer of Support: Providing breakfast essentials to schools for pupils in need, in addition to food packages during school holiday periods. Contact: breakfastinthebayiow@gmail.com
Approved Grant Value: £3,000
Bridges at the Apex Church
Location: Cowes Offer of Support: A series of cookery sessions teaching how to cook on a budget. Food will be provided along with the recipe cards. Contact: bridges@theapexchurch.org
Approved Grant Value: £4,000
Community Rail Partnership
Location: Sandown, Shanklin & Ventnor Offer of Support: Delivering food boxes and hot meals to those that can’t access the gaslight café Lunch Club. The Café lunch club has also been funded. Contact: 07595 670101
Approved Grant Value: £20,000
Community Spirited Cafe
Location: East Cowes Offer of Support: Providing struggling households in East Cowes with food parcels, clothes and shoes, heat retaining products such as fleece blankets and draught excluders in addition to slow cookers, air fryers and microwave appliances, alongside cookery sessions to help them use the equipment. They will also provide females of menstrual age with hygiene packs and run a support group to support households become self-sufficient to reduce costs. Contact: 01983 296592 -communityspirited@hotmail.co.uk
Approved Grant Value: £28,974.21
Green IOW
Location: All Island Offer of Support: Offering cookery sessions aimed at cooking on a budget where small kitchen appliances such as an air fryer will be issued following the lesson. Home visits are available to discuss energy-saving techniques. Drop-in advice clinics are being run in community buildings. Contact: 07725999487
Approved Grant Value: £19,162.50
Isle of Wight College
Location: All Island Offer of Support: Multiple-week community pantry vouchers are provided to those in receipt of Free College Meals. Emergency food and hygiene packs will be provided to vulnerable students. Contact: 01983 526631
Approved Grant Value: £10,668
Ryde Town Council
Location: Ryde Offer of Support: Providing food vouchers to eligible residents in Ryde via an application process. Contact 01983 811105
Approved Grant Value: £19,775
Southern Housing Group
Location: All Island Offer of Support: Through a partnership with the Footprint Trust, cooking lessons will be run for tenants, also providing a free appliance and the food relating to items used in recipes in the lessons. Contact: Email: mark.meredith@southernhousing.org.uk Phone: 07764 405019
Approved Grant Value: £16,632.00
St Helens Community Centre
Location: St Helens Offer of Support: A community fridge will be established in the village to help reduce food waste and the community centre will also expand their warm space coffee afternoons to provide light lunches. Contact: joost.spit@sthelenscc.org.uk
Approved Grant Value: £7,900
SWAY
Location: Ventnor Offer of Support: Cooking classes for young people aged 11-18yrs with their parents and siblings. Ingredients are delivered to each participating house and the lessons undertaken via zoom. Contact: Email: swayoffice1@gmail.com Phone: 07552236067
Approved Grant Value: £1,979.25
Two Saints
Location: All Island Offer of Support: Providing start-up packs to Island residents who have been moved back in independent living accommodation following homelessness. Packs include a bed, beddings, microwave, cutlery and crockery among other items. Contact: 07725 413576
Approved Grant Value: £22,640
Two Saints
Location: All Island Offer of Support: Supporting rough sleepers across the Island with items such as a tent, sleeping bag, bus tickets, launderette tokens, a mobile phone in addition to food grab bags and ID applications and items to help if emergency accommodation is provided. Contact: 07725 413576
Approved Grant VValue: £24,576
Vectis Housing
Location: All Island Offer of Support: Offering food vouchers or food parcels to tenants of Vectis Housing Association struggling with the cost of living. Contact: 01983 525985
Approved Grant Value: £2,000
Ventnor Food Bank
Location: Ventnor Offer of Support: Funding has been provided to help meet demand, through the purchasing of food, toiletries, and sanitary products. Contact: 07862247694
Approved Grant Value: £5,000
Westridge Adult Learning
Location: Ryde Offer of Support: Any adult learners attending a course, can take a free meal bag if required. Toiletries and sanitary products are also supplied. contact: Email: acl@iow.gov.uk Phone: 01983 817280
Approved Grant Value: £1000
Wroxall Food Bank
Location: Ventnor Offer of Support: Funds provided to help with the demand for food at the village food bank. Contact: Email: eloise.preston@aol.com Phone: 07443569577
Approved Grant Value: £3,000
Wroxall Woolies
Location: Sandown, Shanklin & Ventnor Offer of Support: Knitting items such as blankets and warm items for residents at an Island care home. Funding has also been granted to purchase food for the warm space in Wroxall. Contact: 01983 854219
Approved Grant Value: £1000
West Wight Timebank
Location: All Island Offer of Support: Offering households in the West Wight a weekly delivery of food using rescued food, and a monthly hygiene package. Families are identified via a referral process. Contact: 07872304294
Approved Grant Value: £4,175
