Ten of Wellington's community organisations have received a slice of the Bodangora Wind Farm Community Benefit Fund at the announcement of the third round of recipients.
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The third round brings the total in donations made to the Wellington community to $75,000 with a further $25,000 in funding expected in the second half of this year.
Executive General Manager Tony Clark, responsible for the operation of Infigen's wind farms, presented the recipients with cheques alongside Mayor Ben Shields.
“We’re handing out the latest round of grants for the community benefit fund that we’ve set up as part of this wind farm development,” Mr Clark said.
“We have $50,000 a year that we put forward that gets distributed to various groups around the Wellington area that have needs – local sporting clubs, schools and the like.”
Among the recipients were St Mary’s Catholic School, the Wellington Girl Guides and the Wellington Cowboys Junior team.
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Junior Cowboys President Ray Peckham was on hand to receive the funding of $2,500 that the club was awarded.
“That’ll go towards purchasing our 2019 jerseys for our kids, we need to get about six sets of jumpers – right through from our six, sevens nines, elevens, twelves, fourteens and hopefully our fifteens and sixteens,” Mr Peckham said.
“It certainly does make things a lot easier. You can’t just go and get a sponsorship for $2,500 every day, so this is certainly going to go a long way.”
St Mary’s Catholic School received $1,500 to allow them to transport their students to the Geurie pool for swimming during the Wellington pool’s closure.
The investment will allow the school to transport students to Geurie for swimming lessons, according to sport co-ordinator Carole Reinhart.
“We still wanted the children to have lessons, so we decided that the only option was to bus them in every day and the bus was going to cost $1,500, so we applied for the grant.”
The Wellington Girl Guides received the lion's share of the most recent round of funding, securing $5,000 to go towards providing an access ramp at their Guide Hall, as well as a landing area and path as well as a re-hung door in order to comply with regulations.
According to the Girl Guide's Kennette Waser, the group's efforts will cost $5,700 but they were able to make up the difference with a fundraising campaign.
"At the front we have cement steps, so this is serving a dual purpose - we have a fire exit at the point the ramp will come up to, in order to have that fire access comply with WHS standards, we have to have the door swing out," said Ms. Waser.
"For that to swing out, we need a landing - and if we're going to put a landing there, we might as well put in a ramp so that we can cater to people with disabilities and mums with bubs in strollers."
Other recipients include the Wellington Golf Club, Parkrun, the Wellington Cricket Association, Men’s Shed. PCYC, Bodangora Reserve Trust and the Provision of Aged Persons Accomodation.