Teesside community groups need your votes!

 
Community champions need the votes of the Teesside public after being shortlisted to receive a share of a £10,000 charity jackpot.
The £10,000 Goalden Giveaway is a novel way that charitable movement, Middlesbrough and Teesside Philanthropic Foundation, distribute funds to the local community.
After receiving applications from more than 60 Teesside community groups, a panel of the Foundation’s trustees and patrons have chosen just 10 to share the cash.
But the size of the share each group receives will be decided in a public poll, with the good cause receiving the most votes to get £2,500 – and a visit from two Middlesbrough FC players.
The second-placed charity will receive £1,500 and those placed third to fifth £1,000. There’ll be £750 for the charities getting the sixth and seventh most votes and £500 for the remaining good causes.
Thousands of people have voted in previous Goalden Giveaway polls, so the public is asked to give their support to their favourite good cause from the following list:

• Hardwick Youth Football Club – to purchase new training equipment for a Stockton club that has bounced back from an arson attack and six burglaries to win Teesside Junior Football Alliance Club of the Year 2015.
• Middlesbrough Sportability Club – for new sports and computer equipment for children aged 8-19 with disabilities and sensory impairments.
• Grangetown Boys Club – for training equipment, balls and tracksuits for the club’s nine teams and new academy for 3-5 year-olds.
• NEPACS – to pay for toys and other activities in the play areas of the visitor centres at Stockton’s Holme House Prison and Yarm’s Kirklevington Grange.
• Young at Heart – for new games, baking and craft equipment for a Stockton group for people with dementia.
• East Middlesbrough Parents Network – to run summer activities and family adventures for those living in socially deprived areas.
• RECIPE – taking those suffering from homelessness and addiction issues on therapeutic countryside walks and camping.
• Hartlepool Burn Road Youth Athletics Club – to purchase new equipment for a 60-strong group run by volunteers.
• SNAPS – Stockton group providing activities and support to those with disabilities and their families.
• Teesside Rangers FC – replace plastic goals that were taken during a recent break-in on their storage containers in Netherfields.

The cheques will be presented at a Riverside Stadium event by representatives of the Foundation’s patrons, who have helped raise more than £950,000 for Teesside good causes in just four years.
Foundation trustee Emma Simkins, of patrons Henderson Insurance Brokers, was joined on the selection panel by patrons Robert Bennett of RMB Automotive, Karen Eve of Castlegate Shopping Centre, Ken Devereux of Devereux Transport and Helena Pinder of Middlesbrough FC.
Emma said: “Choosing just 10 community groups from the 60 who applied was an incredibly tough task for the panel – but now the Teesside public face an ever tougher decision of giving their vote to just one of the shortlisted 10.”
It is the fourth time in two years that the Foundation has held a £10,000 Goalden Giveaway, with another to be held later in 2015.
To vote for your favourite good cause, visit the Philanthropic Foundation’s website at www.teessidecharity.org.uk. Votes are strictly limited to one vote per IP address. The poll runs until 2pm on Friday August 21.