PCA celebrates grant funding.

Picture by Astrid Brady

Our local community organisation, PCA is celebrating after being awarded a total of £12,500 of funding from The Prince’s Countryside Fund and The Allen Lane Foundation to support our work in fighting hunger and loneliness in our communities. We will use the funding to pay for equipment and running costs for our new HQ- a double decker bus plus the rental costs for our weekly Friendship Café and Community Market which is on every Saturday morning at Wesley Hall.

We have been extremely grateful for the support of local professionals and businesses who have generously provided their services, time and materials for free to help PCA get this project underway. PCA can’t thank them enough.

PCA Director Phil Brady says: “We’re delighted that The Prince’s Countryside Fund and Allen Lane Foundation has recognised the work of our organisation. The funding we have received from these organisations will help PCA empower families as well as individuals living alone and help rural communities to survive and thrive.  We will continue with our regular services which include, Foodshare, Community Meals, BURP (Basic Universal Resource Plan), Buddy Crew, our weekly Friendship Café plus seasonal cultural projects which can include anyone who would like to get involved. However, now with the bus we have the ability to reach those who, for whatever reason, at the moment cannot reach us.

We have never had a home of our own and throughout the pandemic we moved premises a number of times. The support of these Trusts means that we can continue to  support those in our local area but also branch out to surrounding villages, reaching more rural isolated communities in Wiltshire.

We are very grateful to The Methodist Church in Pewsey where we are currently based but having our own dedicated hub space means we can put our roots down to enable us grow the service. We are a well-known and trusted source of help within our local community and the feedback we receive enables us to  measure the impact that our radical, grass roots solutions are helping in people’s lives.

Our Creative Communities initiative helps to connect the community through art  projects and this year will see our 3rd Community Christmas which is to be held on 4th December.  The local schools get involved making decorations for our tree and lanterns for our parade. It’s a real collaboration which brings the whole community together in a positive way with singing, live music, the giving of gifts, mince pies, mulled wine and hot chocolate; father Christmas in his grotto and switching on of the lights on a tree that a local farmers Muttley and Caroline Wells kindly donate.

We’re still looking for a brass band, so if you think you can help, please contact us at together@ourpca.uk.

More bus drivers, carpenters and other tradespeople are always more than welcome! As are any other dedicated volunteers – there’s always something to do. And as we rely totally on donations, they too, are welcomed – there’s always other costs to cover…

For more information about what we do, or how to volunteer or donate visit ourpca.uk