25th February 2016
The immediate future of a charity in Dalton-in-Furness has been secured by a grant from Cumbria Community Foundation.
Dalton Learning Centre provides a range of services to the local community, including a job club, a homework club, a mindful class and a dementia café, as well as a number of skills classes. The group has proved to be a lifeline for many local people who wish to learn new skills while enjoying a thriving social environment.
£1,500 from the Cumbria Fund fund guaranteed the sustainability of the centre as it faces climbing rates and the need for a new project manager. With few viable alternatives in the area, Dalton Learning Centre has proved to be invaluable for many local residents, especially those facing challenging circumstances.
One single parent of two children has been helped greatly by the Centre. One of her children has leukaemia, while the other is still at school. Due to the demands of caring for her children, her social life had suffered. However, she started attending a creative writing class and found that she had a gift for poetry and also enjoyed the social atmosphere. As a result, she is pulling together her poetry to date and is currently looking for a publisher.
Funding was also secured from Children in Need, the Sir John Fisher Foundation and the Hadfield Trust. Margaret Martindale, Project Manager, said: “Without this funding there would be no adult learning classes in Dalton. The nearest involving two buses journeys each way. We also provide StudyAID, a homework club catering for young people who are disengaged with school, and there would be nowhere else for them to go.”