This month the National Lottery celebrates its 30th Anniversary. Since the first lottery draw in 1994 an amazing £49 billion has been raised for good causes across the UK. That might all sound a bit distant from Crediton but, in fact, lottery money has made a huge difference to our local groups, including the Crediton Heart Project.
The Heart Project was formed in 2018 to enhance the lives of the people in Crediton and the surrounding area, to help maintain our vibrant communities and to develop facilities on the community wish list. Basically, we are helping to “keep the heart in Crediton” rather than risking it becoming a commuter satellite to nearby Exeter.
In 2019 the National Lottery awarded us a generous grant to do a public consultation and feasibility study to establish whether the town needed a new community hub. Two conclusions were reached: firstly that local groups needed more space for performances, arts events and other community activities; secondly, that people wanted a community website for sharing information about local businesses, services and events.
In response, the Heart Project turned again to the Lottery and early in 2020 we were granted enough funds to employ a professional designer to help us design and create this website
It was, of course, a difficult time as Covid hit the world but we were able to set up “Crediton in and around”, our informative and popular website and lively social media platforms, which promote everything going on in our vibrant town and villages.
The website is still developing and changing as local needs change, but we are building on the strong foundations created thanks to the National Lottery.
Our ambition to develop new facilities in Crediton is also a work in progress but we are currently exploring a possible site for a new arts and community hub, in collaboration with other local organisations. So watch this space…….
In the meantime we have run three successful summer arts festivals, fulfilling our mission to widen opportunities for local residents.
This summer the National Lottery recognised this work by helping us to fund our most ambitious festival yet, including a series of creative workshops at the Arts Centre, an outreach workshop programme for community groups and a fabulous ‘Arts in the Park’ event in Newcombes Meadow.
As many of you will know, it is a constant struggle for small organisations like ours, run entirely by volunteers, to find the money to keep our projects going. So we are hugely grateful to the National Lottery for enabling us to devise and deliver our ambitious plans and to continue working to keep the heart in Crediton.
By Nancy Murgatroyd
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