A charity which received a £120,000 expansion grant from the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership has secured a further £5,000 community award.
Hearing charity The Ear Foundation, opened its £700,000 ‘Marjorie Sherman House’ centre (pictured below) at its headquarters in Lenton, Nottingham, in April, extending its resources to help deaf children and adults with the latest hearing technologies. The centre will eventually triple the number of people helped (rising to 3,500 annually), double professional training, and create new staff jobs and safeguard others.
The Ear Foundation received £120,000 for its project from D2N2’s Unlocking Investment for Growth (UI4G) programme.
The charity has now announced it has received a further £5,000, to go towards upgrading facilities for families within Marjorie Sherman House.
One of 15 UK awards offered through the One Family Foundation – an organisation which helps to fund community projects – supporters had to vote online for The Ear Foundation to receive the £5,000 award.
The funds will be added to the money the charity had already raised to improve the centre’s residential accommodation for families visiting the city to attend specialist, hearing-related medical appointments.
A spokesperson for the charity said: “We very much appreciate our supporters backing these sort of initiatives, which are usually simple enough to enter, and make a huge difference to our work and allocating funds.
“This award will part-fund the refurbishment of our two bathroom suites at our residential facilities in Marjorie Sherman House.”
This latest planned expansion of its services follows The Ear Foundation’s advert last month (July), to find a ‘Research Lead’; with research experience relating to deaf children, young people and adults, their experiences and the impact on them of the latest hearing technologies.
Unlocking Investment for Growth grants, funded by the UK’s Regional Growth Fund and the European Regional Development Fund, were awarded through the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership Investment Panel, chaired by businessman Peter Gadsby.
UI4G is now fully committed and is no longer accepting applications. Grants already approved will create 420 new jobs and safeguard a further 320 existing jobs. The programme has inspired business owners in the D2N2 area to invest over £20million, alongside the grant support of £4.7million, to grow their businesses.
More information about the One Family Foundation can be found at its website HERE and for more on The Ear Foundation see the link HERE.
For more on the work of the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership see its website at www.d2n2lep.org
Media wanting more information on D2N2 can contact the D2N2 Newsdesk via Communications Officer Sean Kirby on 0115 9578749 or email: sean.kirby@d2n2lep.org
