Last year, Versus Arthritis received a grant of £160,000 to fund a PhD studentship at the University of Liverpool Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease. A student has now been appointed and will be researching new ways to tackle chronic pain in rheumatoid arthritis patients.
The Masonic Charitable Foundation has donated £15,000 to Plan International UK to support survivors of three major earthquakes in the Philippines.
Norfolk, Suffolk, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire Freemasons came together to pay an early Christmas visit to the East Anglian Air Ambulance base at Cambridge Airport and present grants totalling £16,000 from the MCF.
Royal British Legion Industries (RBLI) has been awarded a grant of £135,000 to help hundreds of veterans in Kent. This grant will fund the STEP-IN programme, which supports people with multiple complex health needs and severe disabilities.
The MCF has donated £25,000 to an emergency fund being set up by East Lindsey District Council, in response to Lincolnshire floods. Lincolnshire Freemasons and the Mark Benevolent Fund have matched this grant with two further grants of £25,000.
Treloar College in Alton, which supports young people with complex physical disabilities, has been awarded £50,775 to help create valuable work experience opportunities for its students.
Masonic Charitable Foundation supports the East African Food Crisis Appeal with a £100,000 donation to Plan International.
Thanks to a grant of £100,000 donated by Freemasons in 2015, Blind Veterans UK have turned a disused building in Llandudno into a new Life Skills Centre for young veterans at risk of homelessness.
Teddies for Loving Care (TLC) raise funds for and organises the supply of cuddly toys to A&E units for children in severe distress and have so far distributed almost 2,500,000 TLC teddies! In fact a TLC Teddy is given to a distressed child every 2 ½ minutes on average.
TLC Appeal - www.tlcappeal.org
"Initially, we undertook a number of trial runs at the car park of the Brewery Tap in Peterborough on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and after 16 weeks we now feed and offer clothing and bedding to over 60 people per night."
