We’re celebrating at the Howlands today. We’ve just received news we have secured a  very generous grant of £50,000  from the Big Lottery Community Buildings fund to help us build our case and application for a grant to refurbish our wonderful building in the heart of Dewsbury.

The initial grant has three roles, it will help to employ an architect, develop  a business plan, and  hire a management consultant to help us look at improving how the Howlands is run and developed.

We are fortunate enough to be able to employ three local firms to help us. Horbury based architects, Acropolis Design, Cath Longley of Good Fundraising from Ossett is writing our business plan, and Lynda Swinden of Oyster Consultancy based in Flockton  is providing the management consultancy, Chew PR of Wakefield is providing voluntary PR services and mentoring to help us with our PR and marketing communication.

We are very pleased with this team who are keen to work together to help us achieve our aims and help us to continue to build on a much needed service.

Every year the Big Lottery Fund distributes millions of pounds of the National Lottery’s good cause money to community groups and charitable projects around the UK. They are responsible for distributing 40 per cent of all the money raised for good causes by the National Lottery. In our 2014-15 financial year, we awarded more than £1 billion to projects with a social mission.

Based in Dewsbury, Howlands endeavours to promote the varied abilities of our local community.