Southern Cross Credit Union (SCCU) today announced the recipients who will share in $40,000 worth of Community Grants. Following on from a successful 2020 program which saw SCCU support six community projects, they are once again putting their money where their mouth is, backing community organisations and small businesses throughout the Northern Rivers. Acknowledging the challenges of today’s world, this year’s Grant program encouraged applicants to apply with their plan to build a better tomorrow.
This year’s SCCU Community Grant recipients are:
Tweed Shire Community-led Resilience Team (CRT)s – Grant to be split between 16 tweed shire community resilience teams to purchase supplies they need such as defibrillators, first aid kits, generators and the like.
PCYC Lismore – Grant to provide outreach program support for youth in surrounding areas who are unable to attend Lismore PCYC due to transport issues and living out of the Lismore LGA.
The Healthy Minds Club – Grant to provide free mental health first aid courses and text books for 200 people, to kick start their mental health program. .
Cabarita Beach SLSC – Grant to assist with the necessary upgrade of equipment that will help the patrol continue to report on daily beach activity to Surf Life Saving Australia, including people on beach, in water, and hazards.
Zonta Club of Northern Rivers – To establish a mentor program with community housing tenants, compiling 100 writing kits, and credit vouchers for phone and data before Christmas for women in need.
Australian Seabird Rescue Inc – Grant to purchase a Brinsea Humidicrib to provide sick or injured seabirds with individual temperature and humidity control, bringing facilities up to code standard.
Collecting My Thoughts – Grant will subsidise mental health training of 50 individuals.
Each of this year’s recipients was incredibly excited to be working with SCCU across the next 12 months to be able to bring their projects to life.
Jackson Connellann from The Healthy Minds Club shares
“By providing our organisation with the SCCU grant we will be able to deliver our free community MHFA courses throughout 2022. This will provide mental health first aid education to 200 participants from the Northern Rivers community, which is an invaluable tool in managing crisis situations. Thank you to SCCU and all involved in this grant!”
SCCU CEO Stuart Edwards shared “As we adapt to this new normal, and while things continue to shift, we want to keep supporting our community more than ever before and strengthen our resolve and ethos as a true community based financial institution. Our commitment truly reflects who we are as a business, where we’re going and why we’re different for all the right reasons. We’re excited about the seven projects we have chosen to support this year across a range of categories from sport and recreation to health and wellbeing, sustainability, and education, and are looking forward to being involved in bringing them to life”.
SCCU’s Community Grants program was recently announced as a Finalist in the 2021 Get Ready NSW Awards and was awarded a Highly Commended in a year that saw a record number of applicants.
Cassie Nicole, SCCU’s Community and Sponsorship Specialist believes “The Highly Commended Award was an incredible acknowledgement of the work put into redesigning the program to help the people of the Northern Rivers recover and rebuild from the impact of the pandemic in the best way we could. As a customer owned organisation, helping our community through the challenging times is important to us, and this year’s Community Grants program was exactly that. We saw huge community support with the public vote, and an enormous amount of engagement from all of our finalists in driving votes. This year is an important one as we hope to see the end of the worst of Covid-19, and focus on building a better tomorrow. We’d like to thank everyone who participated in this year’s application process, and congratulations to all of our worthy recipients.”
To read more about our 2021 SCCU Community Grants recipients and their projects visit the SCCU Community Grants website page.
