Giveaway cash boost to Emley village’s heritage

Jan 5 2010 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Giveaway cash boost to village’s heritage

THE Examiner’s £50,000 cash giveaway is now underway with groups across Huddersfield bidding for a share of the bumper sum.

The money is available to groups mainly run by volunteers which do valuable work within communities – and one in Emley is already using cash from last year’s giveaway to boost the village’s coal-mining heritage.

The Examiner ran a similar scheme last year and we are re-visiting those organisation to find out how they have spent the money and how it is helping to improve the quality of people’s lives.

The breadth of those helped last year ranges from disabled groups to sports organisations, youth groups to those dedicated to helping the elderly.

Emley Millennium Green Trust received £600 last year – and the money has helped the village to go greener and also continue to honour its coal-mining heritage.

The money was used to plant 100 trees on the Millennium Green and also to restore and paint an old underground excavator in gleaming white. It had got rusty and a team of volunteers from the Trust restored it using special weatherproof paint.

The Trust has 14 trustees and their mission is to look after the green for the village.

They hold two fundraisers a year – a race night at the village’s White Horse pub and a carol concert on the green – which need to bring in £1,000 together just for maintenance costs.

“The Community Foundation cash made all the difference this year,’’ said secretary Mike Hall. “It allowed us to go beyond the normal maintenance jobs such as cutting the grass and trimming the hedges and do two tasks which will be permanent fixtures on the green in the long-run.