Letham4All SCIO operates the Community Fridge Project in the Letham, Muirton, and Moncreiffe areas of Perth to prevent good food from going to waste and help people stretch their budgets. The Community Fridges operate as a universal service, meaning they are open to anyone in the community, with no referral being required and they can used as many times as people want to use them.

The Community Fridge Project collects surplus food every evening from local supermarkets, which is then sorted and distributed between the different sites. Some surplus food is blast-frozen and is available from freezers in each of the areas. All of this surplus food is freely given away, as well as frozen meals prepared by another local charity made from surplus food. In each of the Community Fridge, there is a range of tinned and dried goods which people can purchase at 20p an item, up to a maximum spend of £2.00 (10 items). The Letham Community Fridge is open 7 days a week, with Muirton and Moncrieffe Fridges being open 4 days throughout the week.

The Community Fridge Project is supported by around 60 volunteers who take on a variety of roles across the whole operation of the project. We know that around 400 people from over 1000 registered users, access the project every week and that throughout the ongoing cost-of-living crisis it has been an invaluable support to people, stretching their budget when they need it. The Project has saved 1000s of tonnes of good food going into landfill and is helping locally to tackle climate change. This funding will help pay for some of the operating costs of the 3 projects and help fill the shelves with the 20p items. The Community Fridges also provides a wide range of information about other support services available in the community including financial well-being guidance, health and wellbeing services, and other community groups and organisations.

Strathearn United Football Club request funding to allow those people living on low incomes with low self-esteem and social issues to enjoy our activities and improve their health and quality of life. The key to the club is making friends, improving health and building confidence. 

We will be the only club in Perthshire to be in the Scottish Warriors League, who are supporting many males overcome anxiety, mental health issues, social isolation and prevent suicides. 

Our volunteer coaches are qualified in football, mental health, exercise and nutrition. We also have a welfare officer as well as a club chaplain who is available for confidential chats when needed. 

We seek funding of £2,930 to cover the cost of allowing up to 15 people who wish to attend but are unable to due to financial hardship.  We request funding to cover the session fees, sports kit and transport costs. 

However, the best way to understand what a difference our club can make is to watch the video from a similar Warrior club to ours, Denny Warriors. Watch Gary from Denny talk to former England international Ashley Cole about how football saved his life.

Your vote just might save someone's life!

We are exploring the possibility of this funding to try and offer children from Rattray some fun activities. These activities will offer far more than fun, opportunities to learn or improve on skills, fitness, be part of a team, work on respect, nature, environment, self-confidence all at their own pace and learning ability.

At Mantalk we have a lot of men coming through our doors with issues that stem from childhood. We are big believers that the more positivity you can give to children can help them them right throughout life. Whilst we are unable to accommodate them at our group we are always looking at ways where we can offer some help and support.

We talk about our own childhood experiences and when things like activities or sport camps came up many of us missed out because our parents couldn’t afford to pay the costs. From our own experiences during childhood we wouldn’t wish that feeling on any child but due to the cost of living we know there will be many children in similar positions. If we are successful then these spaces will be offered to any child in Rattray for free on a variety of activity days during the school holidays including paintball, cycling, football, rugby and archery.  We will partner with Albert Douglas of AK Paintball, Piotr Gudan of Outdoor explore and Cally Gordons activity camps to deliver these activities to the children of Rattray.

Facilitating the engagement in meaningful and therapeutic activities (horticulture, woodwork, gastronomy, fitness, nutrition and arts), we aim for people to have better physical, emotional and mental wellbeing; to have better connections with the wider community; and to gain access to new skills and training which will help them move on to positive destinations. We can work with anyone aged 16+ who is reporting difficulties with their mental health and wellbeing.

 

Three of our engagement staff recently qualified as Decider Skills Facilitators. We are now looking to introduce Decider Skills within our activity engagement sessions at The Walled Garden – Creative Wellbeing, Healthy Lifestyles, Gardening and Hospitality. Decider skills supports and encourages self-management, which includes things like sound and rational decision making. Participant workbooks are not within most client’s affordability, creating a financial barrier to meaningful access. From a cost of living perspective, supporting these expenditures would alleviate any financial pressure and allow clients to engage in this form of therapeutic and self-development activity equitably.  

 

How Decider Skills can directly influence the cost of living -

The ‘think’, ‘focus’ and ‘pace and plan’ skills support resilience and anxiety management, offering clients the confidence to navigate problematic situations with finances and seeking help. ‘Turn the mind’ challenges habitual behaviour and patterns, and offers alternative ways that can lead to a more helpful outcome. ‘STOPP’ considers impulse, and how we can objectively respond to strong emotions.

 

The Decider Skills | The Decider

Meigle Parent Council would like to bring a fun range of clubs to the children of Meigle, Alyth, Coupar Angus and surrounding areas. 

We understand that the the cost of living crisis has impacted families to the point that they can no longer afford to pay for their children to attend clubs and classes outside of school. We have also identified that there is a lack of after school activities in the local area.

Our plan is to offer a different club for 8 weeks each term, running from April 2025-April 2026, including art, dance, outdoor skills and yoga & mindfulness. These would be led by experienced instructors within Meigle Kinloch Hall and Belmont Woods for outdoor activities. A healthy snack would also be provided at every session. We intend to give each child that attends the yoga & mindfulness classes a Mindfulness Journal to take home to continue what they will learn in the class. 

Children's Mental Heath Charity Place2Be's 2025 theme is 'Know Yourself, Grow Yourself'. We feel that the activities we have selected will give them the safe and supported space to explore their interests that will ultimately help support and enhance their mental wellbeing. We hope that through these classes they develop healthy life skills and habits, boost their self confidence and build resilience to help them cope with whatever life may put their way. 

We have based our numbers on approximately 20 children, coming to this number by looking at similar classes that have run in the past in similar sized villages. 

 

We plan to run recreational sport and fitness sessions, mainly football based however we will take feedback from participants and engage with our partner clubs about other sports that may be of interest, to address the needs of people who may be suffering from or at risk of social isolation, poor mental health and young people not in education and training. We will deliver 3 sessions per week throughout the year aimed at these target groups but open to all who feel they would benefit from such a session. These sessions will be delivered in the morning, afternoon and evening spaced out throughout the week to allow options for participants and ensure the best reach. We will advertise this project through our social media channels, local press, partner agencies and in hard copy in local facilities. This is a new project for us which we will be reviewing to better understand the demand, impact on participants daily lives, effectiveness and desirability of the sessions. We hope that this will lead to a future expanded community projects package including this and other projects for the benefit of people in our community who would benefit from enhanced physical activity coupled with additional life support covering areas such as financial, skills and confidence, employability and mental health. In addition part of this funding will be used to invest in our exisiting volunteers ongoing development to allow them to better support our participants and potential new volunteers drawn from our attendees. This funding will allow them to be upskilled in coaching qualifications, first aid training as well as in additional areas particular to their ongoing development goals.

All Strong supports the improvement and self-management of mental and physical wellness. We work with a wide range of partner organsisations and the public to support those with mental health issues, autism, unpaid carers, those struggling to engage in mainstream activities, addiction recovery and more.

Following on from a successful and well-attended pilot programme of art and social groups, we are applying to this fund so that we can run 3 hour-long sessions each week for 48 weeks over the next year at no cost to participants. We currently run over 20 wellbeing sessions each week covering a range of self-management activities, and have identified the need to provide further creative and social sessions that are inclusive, supportive, non-judgemental and with all materials provided.

These groups will be open to the public (16+) and will be aimed at supporting:

- those experiencing mental health issues

- those experiencing isolation and loneliness

Activities will take place in our welcoming and comfortable tailor-made Creative & Social space, with tea, coffee, fruit and snacks on offer, and will be facilitated by our experienced art instructor.

Sessions will include:

- use and guidance in a wide range of art materials

- a chance to chat and share in a non-judgemental environment

- use of our music room

- wellbeing journals

OUTCOMES:

- improved mental health and wellbeing

- increased connection to others, community and sense of belonging

- development of healthy habits and routine

This project will greatly complement our many gym and physical activity sessions, further supporting people with both mental and physical health. This project will be open to the general public, and along with our social media the offering will be promoted via our partner organisations which include other charities and organisations supporting people with mental health conditions, additional support needs and challenges.

For the last year and a half, coaches who live locally from stirling shinty club along with  Active Schools Coordinator for Crieff & Fairview  Nick Keiller, have been running primary age after school clubs in crieff. A club session for primary aged kids has also developed this with kids playing in local and national festivals and competitions. Currently crieff has access to plastic first shinty equipment , but to move to the next level and start sessions in the high school, we are looking for wooden sticks, helmets , balls and Multi purpose goals. This equipment would be used for outdoor school competitions , from primary and secondary schools, festivals, PE lessons and after school clubs  We hope to develop Shinty as a sport for the local community where kids will grow up to be part of local club, and be part of a traditional sport that is at the heart of many areas in scotland, which can grow  in strathearn, as it has for clubs in Lochabar , Badenoch, Oban, Inverness to Glasgow.

Letham4All SCIO has been working with a variety of partners across Perth and Kinross at a very local community level, a dignified and holistic route to reduce the impact of poverty.  As a result of this work, Letham4All has successfully piloted the use of the Pay Point Platform and extended to scope of Perth Cards, to provide small amounts of financial support, to help people in immediate financial crisis. Working with existing referral routes this project will provide an additional route for support for those who are not successful with a crisis grant or where a crisis grant is not an appropriate option. The Paypoint Platform enables the sending of utility voucher codes by text message to a mobile phone that can be redeemed in the usual place people top up their utility cards/keys and the Perth Cards across Perth and Kinross can be used in a variety of shops to purchase food and utilities.

This referral-based support has been accessed by a range of public agencies and 3rd sector organisations who have had no other means of supporting people with financial support to offer a breathing space while longer-term solutions are set up. This has been particularly effective out with traditional working hours and at weekends and support can be organised and delivered within an hour.  We know from feedback from agencies that being able to offer this quick solution to those most in need is very beneficial to the household, encourages further discussion to longer-term solutions to prevent further crises, and reduces stress and worry. Partners have also told us that being able to use the Pay Point Platform as a means of offering support saves valuable staff time in handling and delivering cash payments for utility tops-ups and is a much faster way of getting support to their clients.  To deliver this project Letham4All and its partners use the Citizen Advice Bureau’s information-sharing protocol, The Fast Online Referral Tracking System, FORT. This system enables all partners to see what referrals and support services have been received by a service user eliminating the risk of duplication, and giving support services a clear picture of services received and of any gaps emerging in meeting the needs of the person.Letham4All will reach out through its existing partners and networks in Coupar Angus, Meigle, and Alyth to ensure that information on how this support can be accessed through the referral process and The Fast Online Referral Tracking System is widely shared and understood.