£400 for 40

Cornwall Glass has donated in excess of £19,000 to charities and community groups throughout Cornwall as part of its 40th birthday celebrations.

The company launched its ‘£400 for 40’ campaign at the beginning of this year, with the aim of reaching out to grass roots community organisations and charities throughout the county.

Administered by the Cornwall Community Foundation, Cornwall Glass received more than 70 applications for the £400 individual awards. Exceeding its own campaign target, in the end these were made to 48, rather than the planned 40 organisations.

Celebrating the awards at a 40th Anniversary ‘tea-party’ at the end of October, it brings the total donated to community groups through the Cornwall Glass Fund, since being set up in 2009 to more than £80,000.

Kati Bawden, one of seven colleagues to sit on Cornwall Glass’s Awards Panel, said: “What’s amazing and inspiring is that so many of these organisations are being run by people who have been through some pretty difficult times individually but who have come out the other side of them with a commitment to help other people.

“Although we originally intended to issue 40 awards – one for each year that we have been in business – we found it just too difficult and, because not everyone needed the full £400 donation, we had a reserve that we were able to reallocate to other deserving organisations.”

Recipients of the awards included organisations as diverse as: Trial Kids, a group aimed at getting children active with their families; Safehouse, a project that provides a place for transgender people to meet and feel safe; multiple brass bands; a male voice choir; Cornwall BMX Club; Redruth Highway Community Project; Untangled, a peer-to-peer support group for pre and post-natal depression and anxiety; and numerous school PTAs.