Wrapping up 2024 – Seasons Greetings from East Brighton Trust!
It’s been a super-busy year at East Brighton Trust. We are proud to have supported and celebrated so many incredible people, projects, and organisations in 2024, and as we take a moment to look back, we’d love to share a few of the many highlights with you.
Our vision is that we want everyone in our community to have support if they need it, to be able to access opportunities and activities. By listening to what matters, we have been able to help make positive changes happen through grants, partnerships, and social investment, identifying and addressing specific community needs throughout the year.
Since 2016, East Brighton Trust has been making positive change with grants ranging from £750 to £10,000, and in 2024 alone we have donated over £40,000 to help make a difference in North and East Brighton.
We’ve helped to fund a number of projects across all our communities that support people facing food poverty this year, from projects delivered by Brighton and Hove Food Partnership and social supermarket Moulsecoomb Community Market, and our latest funding for East Brighton Food Cooperative means that Christmas dinners with all the trimmings will be freshly made and delivered to 62 isolated and vulnerable people across East Brighton next week.
We supported the incredible Diggers Re-enactment organised by Victoria Melody in May, a free event with and for East Brighton residents which celebrated the activists who fought inequality and poverty.
Anne Bickmore from the ABC Fund told us how our support has given opportunities to children in East Brighton.
“We were able to take a party of 100 for a trip round the Amex Stadium, and also provided 100 “Buckets of Sunshine” for those who don’t normally get out for a day on the beach. The crab buckets held a beach towel, sunhat, suncream and a spade. All this would not be possible were it not for the support we receive from EBT”
Other highlights included support to help Komedia Productions to fund a comedy workshop for kids at The Crew Club and assisting Bevendean Gymnastics Club with covering some of their costs for their summer camp, as well as helping to fund a Summer Playscheme at Hawks Community Cafe.
East Brighton Trust are also proud to support local schools, and we were delighted to fund a trip to The Pavilion Ice-skating rink for a group of children from City Academy Whitehawk as well as delivering some supplies for their Christmas disco, and funding books for some of the KS2 children.
We believe in the power of social investment to create lasting change, and many of our neighbours at Westergate Business Centre also support and invest in the local community, which has led us to create partnerships such as the Textile Reuse Hub which promotes textile reuse and embraces sustainability.
2024 also saw the birth of The Echo, with issue one giving a platform to insightful interviews, project spotlights, community news, and feel-good stories, amplifying the diverse voices of North and East Brighton.
The third Community Leaders’ Lunch took place this month, where we brought together a room full of community champions including local residents doing fantastic things in the community, headteachers of local schools, sports leaders, those fighting inequality around food, education, employment, local councilors, those running food projects, art projects and many others who are making a difference across North and East Brighton. We are already looking forward to the next one.
Finally, we have had some changes to ‘Team EBT’ this year and we think it’s about time we introduced ourselves, so we’ll be doing that at the start of 2025, and telling you about some new and exciting projects and initiatives at the same time.
It has been a wonderful year and we want to wish everyone a peaceful and relaxing Christmas and all the best for 2025, and can’t wait to catch up next year!
Best wishes,
The Team at EBT