Axminster charity scoops £200,000 lotto award

An Axminster-based healthy eating charity has been given a £200,000 lottery grant to fund a pioneering scheme.

Health and Local Food for Families (HALFF) will use the money to pay for a new five-year project designed to support carers in Devon, Dorset and Somerset.

The initiative will bring together the experience from two previous projects to support hundreds of carers learning how to improve their own health and the health of those they care for. It will focus on people caring for loved ones with heart disease, type two diabetes or high blood pressure, older people caring for partners and parents caring for their children.

The project will deliver free, regular healthy cooking courses and demonstrations, planning and budgeting sessions, nutrition and labelling guidance and information on how food can affect health.

A range of other support will be on offer, including fortnightly newsletters, drop-in sessions at the charity’s food hub and opportunities to volunteer in the shop or garden.

Working with partners including local health bodies, Age UK, children’s centres, Diabetes UK and Devon Carers, a referral system will be developed to reach people who would find support from the project most useful.

Tiggy Parry, director of Health and Local Food for Families, said: “It is fantastic that this grant will enable us to focus our new project on supporting carers and those they look after to eat more healthily. Carers are a group that are often overlooked, yet they work tirelessly to look after their loved ones day in, day out. Our new project aims to help improve their wellbeing and quality of life and we can’t wait to get started.”

Tim Davies-Pugh, Big Lottery Fund deputy director, said: “It is really great news that HALFF’s project will use Big Lottery funding to help improve the health and wellbeing of carers and their loved ones.”

To find out more or enrol in the project, go to www.halff.org.uk or ring 01297 631782.