Western Bay community groups benefit from $226k Covid-19 recovery fund

The Western Bay's House of Science benefitted from the funding. Photo / Supplied

The Western Bay of Plenty Covid-19 Recovery Fund has paid out its first round of grants.

A total of $226,530 was distributed to nine community groups including AIMS Games Trust, Te Tuinga Whanau Support Services and Alzheimer's Society Tauranga.

The Recovery Fund aimed to support key Western Bay NFPs and NGOs to survive the medium-term impact of Covid-19.

The joint fund was phase two of the Covid-19 response by local funders TECT, Acorn Foundation, BayTrust and Tauranga City Council.

House of Science general manager Pam Bassett said the $30,000 in funding they received had been a lifeline after experiencing a significant loss of income.

"We are so grateful to our local funders for this support – it will mean we can continue to ensure Western Bay children get all the education, encouragement and opportunities they need to foster a lifelong love of science and robotics."

Operations co-ordinator at Complex Chronic Illness Support Miranda Whitwell said the Recovery funding will allow them to provide full wages for their staff who have been working in overdrive since the lockdown.

"Many of our clients are used to being isolated due to their conditions and being immuno-compromised, but the level of anxiety for them has increased significantly, even still after lockdown. Many have 'crashed', and this affects their physical and mental health significantly."

St Peters House manager Catherine Page said the charity had experienced increased demand and increased urgency and severity of referrals.

"After the lockdown, we saw an almost immediate increase in demand for our counselling services. Counselling requests in May were double what we received in April, and they further increased in June.

"The $14,000 in funding we received through the Covid-19 Recovery Fund will help us increase our counselling service by extending contracts and the hours of some of our counsellors, to try and meet the increasing community need."

The Covid-19 Recovery Fund was open for applications, which could be made online through the TECT website.

There was no closing date of the fund and applications were considered fortnightly.

Community groups who received business as usual funding, and Rapid Response funding, may still be eligible to apply to the Recovery Fund.