Sunflower House in Folkestone
Ten Kent community centres are celebrating an early Christmas gift after receiving a share of Southern Water’s £30,000 regional Community Fund. Each centre has been awarded a £1,000 grant to help cover core running costs.
The lucky recipients are:
- South Willesborough & Newtown Community Centre
- Greenhithe Community Centre
- All Saints Community Project
- PCC of St Augustine’s
- Hartlip Village Hall
- The Alexander Centre CIC
- Dover Big Local CIC
- Newington Community Association
- Sunflower House
- Thanet Community Development Trust
Together, these vital community hubs serve over 8,000 people in Kent each month. They offer a wide range of essential services, including:
- Food banks
- Bereavement support groups
- Fitness classes
- Community theatre
- Parent groups
- Dementia support
- Counselling sessions
- Free meals
This generous funding from Southern Water will help these centres continue to provide invaluable support to their local communities.
Folkestone’s Sunflower House, located on Foord Road, is a vital community hub, offering health, wellbeing, and development activities to around 3,000 people each month. Their wide-ranging work includes providing small emergency grants for energy and travel, housing support through Action on Homelessness Folkestone, and running sessions for those affected by domestic violence. The centre also hosts theatre performances and wellbeing groups.
The grant from Southern Water will help fund Sunflower House’s Warm Welcome initiative—a Friday morning drop-in service offering hot drinks, snacks, and emergency weekend food parcels to those in need.
Spokesman Jon O’Connor said: “With this support from Southern Water for our Sunflower House Warm Welcome community project we’ll be able to keep our buildings warm and friendly, the kettles boiling for a cuppa, the biscuits and snacks rolling round. Most important of all, we can help all the families we love working with feel part of our family too.”
Southern Water’s Community Fund scheme is now in its third year, and this year is giving away £30,000 to community centres across Hampshire, Kent, Sussex and the Isle of Wight. The grant programme is part of the company’s ongoing work to support resilient communities to thrive, alongside delivering ongoing utility services in our region.
Alex Willumsen, Southern Water’s Community Partnerships and Programme Manager, said: “The huge number of applications we received illustrated the incredible amount of support and services community centres offer to thousands of people across our region. We’re so pleased to be able to offer a helping hand through these grants, which will help ensure they can keep up their valuable work.”