Contact Hostel celebrates after receiving £20k of National Lottery funding
Contact Hostel staff sit on a blue sofa with a large cheque from the National Lottery, staff from left to right are: Alison (Service Manager), Hannah ( Operations Manager), Alex (Support Worker), Victoria (Administration Assistant) and Phyllis (Support Worker).
Contact Hostel, is celebrating after being awarded £20,000 in National Lottery funding to support its work providing accommodation and support for teenage girls. The charity, based in Whalley Range, will use the money to cover essential staff costs.
Contact Hostel has been running since 1970 and is staffed by a team of dedicated and enthusiastic women, with a passion to support the most vulnerable girls and women in our community. It was founded by Brigid Murphy over 54 years ago after she realised the struggles faced by teenage girls leaving care and other institutions, with nowhere to turn to.
Contact provides a safe haven for up to nine girls at a time, allowing them a safe space to heal whilst also supporting each resident to access education, employment or training.
The new funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest community funder in the UK, will see this vital work continue at a time when Manchester faces some of the highest levels of homelessness in the country.
Helen Gazard, Fundraising & Income Partner at Contact says: “We’re delighted that The National Lottery Community Fund has recognised our work in this way. Now, thanks to National Lottery players we will be able to continue being there for girls when they need it most. Our team of support workers is on site 24 hours a day, this enables to provide ‘everything a good parent should’ to our girls”.
The National Lottery Community Fund recently launched its strategy, ‘It starts with community’, which will underpin its efforts to distribute at least £4 billion of National Lottery funding by 2030.
As part of this, the funder has four key missions, which are to support communities to come together, be environmentally sustainable, help children and young people thrive and enable people to live healthier lives.
National Lottery players raise over £30 million a week for good causes across the UK. Thanks to them, last year (2023/24) The National Lottery Community Fund awarded over half a billion pounds (£686.3 million) of life-changing funding to communities across the UK, supporting over 13,700 projects to turn their great ideas into reality.
To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk