SEVERAL Huddersfield community groups have benefited from grants totalling well over £200,000.
The money has been handed out during 2012 by the Freemasons in the Province of Yorkshire, West Riding, to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
Hepworth Brass Band received £20,000 to purchase new instruments and Colne Valley Museum at Golcar was awarded £12,000 towards refurbishments at a reception and café area.
The museum keeps local crafts alive and shows visitors – including thousands of Huddersfield schoolchildren – how they were done while dressed in period costume.
The £223,500 in grants have ranged from £100 to provide new crockery for the Roundway Tenants and Residents Association in Honley to £30,000 given to a special needs school in Rastrick to enable it to complete an upgrade of its hydrotherapy pool.
Provincial Grand Master John Clayton said: “A final group of grants completes our work during the year to mark this very special occasion, the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty’s reign, and afford help to those who work tirelessly for their own communities.
“We wish the organisations who have received our grants all the best in their endeavours.
“I am always impressed with the enthusiasm and dedication with which they approach their work for the community. We hope that our financial support will go some way to assist them in that work.
“In the last 25 years the Province has given almost £3m to support local non-Masonic causes. Not a penny of that money came from the general public – it was all donated by members of the Province, their families and their friends.”
Other local recipients have included:
l Holmfirth Town AFC £250
l Kirkheaton Scouts and Guides £500
l Duke of Edinburgh Award Trust £1,000
l Huddersfield Deaf Centre £1,000, as part cost of a new stairlift
l Honley Cricket Club £1,000 towards an artificial wicket
l Huddersfield Community Responders £1,500 to purchase defibrillators.
All 18 Huddersfield area Masonic Lodges and their members contribute to the money raised by West Riding Masonic Charities.
In October 2011 the charity gave £20,000 to national children’s charity Lifelites which enabled it to provide state-of-the-art entertainment technology for the Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice at Brackenhall.
