For 12 months, starting from August 2024, Teams and Bensham Community Care are able to continue their free exercise sessions, twice per week, for attendees of their Men's Groups and Lunch Clubs. This has been made possible thanks to National Lottery players.
For over a year now, the TBCC charity has partnered with Active Families North East CIC to deliver a weekly Bowls For Health session at our Men's Group, and a weekly Active Forever (exercise to music) session at our Lunch Club.
The sessions are ideal for our day centre setting, with the instructors from Active Families skilled at ensuring activities are accessible for all abilities, and can be done seated or standing. Most importantly, the instructors make the sessions fun, while bringing so many benefits to everyone who takes part.
We received £4,320 from Sport England to continue the sessions for a further year, so that existing and new attendees of our lunch clubs and men's groups can continue to benefit. By offering the sessions at no cost, we ensure that individuals attending our day centre who are facing financial difficulties can always participate in the activities. This matters most in our community where health and income deprivation levels are higher than most other areas in England.
Sport England is a public body and invests up to £300 million National Lottery and government money each year in projects and programmes that help people get active and play sport. It wants everyone in England, regardless of age, background, or level of ability, to feel able to engage in sport and physical activity. That’s why a lot of its work is specifically focused on helping people who do no, or very little, physical activity and groups who are typically less active - like women, disabled people and people on lower incomes.
National Lottery players raise, on average, £30 million each week for projects all over the country. In total £38 billion has been raised for Good Causes since The National Lottery began in 1994 and more than 535,000 individual grants have been made across the UK, the majority (70 per cent) of which are for £10,000 or less, helping small projects make a big difference in their community!
Tracey Crouch, Minister for Sport and Civil Society, said:
"This campaign is a fantastic way for National Lottery projects to give back to the players who support them every week, raising millions of pounds for good causes. There are hundreds of venues hosting events up and down the country, so I encourage everyone to get out out there and take advantage of what is on in their area."
Thanks to National Lottery players we can look forward to another year of free wellbeing-enhancing sessions at our groups, where local older people have a great day out and stay connected with others.
If you or someone you know would like more information about the Teams and Bensham Community Care centre, we're always happy to answer any questions, arrange a home visit or to help in any other way we can. Call our team on 0191 4600297.
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