MORE than 60 nominations have been made for Essex charities or community projects to get a share of £16,000...and there’s still time to nominate your favourite.

Your favourite local paper is giving charities the chance to take a share of a cash giveaway.

Our parent company’s charitable arm, the Gannett Foundation, is providing £128,000 in cash to support charities across the country and we are delighted to have the £16,000 share to give away in our area.

We want you to nominate their favourite charities to be considered for a grant.

It could be you volunteer or work for a charity, or you may just want to support your favourite local charity by nominating it for a share of the cash we’re making available to support great local courses.

The money could help charities to provide their vital services in the area.

In previous years, a variety of charities that have won have used the money to benefit or upgrade their services.

They include Colchester Sea Cadets which applied for £5,100 to refurbish two cabins on the training ship to allow overnight stays and use for day-time training and meetings.

It was awarded the full amount for the work on the TS Colne Light, docked at the Hythe. The money was used to add bunk beds to the two cabins.

The Colchester YMCA received a grant for £2,114 to fit out its training kitchen with enough equipment to teach its young residents how to cook and eat healthily.

We have received 65 nominations so far for readers’ favourite charities across Essex to be considered for a grant too.

It’s simple to make a nomination, just log-on to www.gazettenews.co.uk/readerschoice and fill in your nomination form.

You can also write to us, confirming the name and address of the charity you’d like to nominate and why to Readers’ Choice Cash For Charity Nominations, Unit 1 Brunel Court, Brunel Way, Severalls Industrial Estate, Colchester, CO4 9XP.

The closing date for nominations to be sent is September 11.

Once all nominations have been received, our editor will select ten of the most popular charities in our area to be featured in this year’s grants scheme.

Then for four weeks, readers will be invited to collect tokens from our newspapers which can then be sent to collection points across our region or posted.

Each token collected will then be used to allocate cash to the nominated charity.

So if your favourite charity collects 50 per cent of all tokens collected, it will receive 50 per cent of the £16,000.

 

Newsquest terms and conditions will apply where relevant to the grants process; please visit http://www.newsquest.co.uk/prize-competition-rules. Personal data will be used by Newsquest and its agents solely for the administration of the grants process and will not be shared with any third party; our general privacy notice is at: http://www.newsquest.co.uk/privacy-policy. This campaign will be published in multiple Newsquest publications across this Newsquest region.  The ten charities chosen by the local editorial panel will be voted for by our readers. The value of the grant awarded to each of the ten charities will be calculated pro rata according to their share of the vote. Only original voting coupons will be accepted, no photocopies. The cash grants will be sent by BACS transfer. Grants are conditional on completion of the relevant project and a successful nominee charity may be required to evidence its use of the grant. The top 10 charities selected for the vote will be contacted to provide additional information for entry into the readers’ vote; should this information not be provided within the timescale provided then the editorial panel will select an alternative charity. The charity must be registered with the Charities Commission and have not received a grant from the Gannett Foundation in the last two years.