A total of 60 community groups will share €400,000 from the first allocation from Dublin Airport’s new €10 million Community Fund.
The organisations that are being funded comprise 43 successful applicants and 17 groups which were previously supported by Dublin Airport in a multi-year agreement and are now backed by the Fund as part of a transition arrangement.
The Fund is also supporting up to 10 students per year from economically disadvantaged backgrounds to enable them to attend Dublin City University (DCU) via its Access Programme.
Dublin Airport’s €10 million Community Fund was launched during the summer with an annual investment of €400,000 over the next 25 years. Support is focussed on areas such as; environment and sustainability, sports and recreation, social inclusion and community development, health and wellbeing, and culture and heritage.
Dublin Airport Managing Director Vincent Harrison said he was delighted that so many community groups had applied to the community fund for support. “The response has been fantastic with 100 community groups submitting applications. The doubling of our annual spend means that we are able to reach even further into our communities and more people and causes will benefit from our support.”
Eighteen community groups will receive support above €5,000 in this round of funding while 42 groups will receive €5,000 or less.
Among the projects being funded were: new heaters for the 18th Santry Scout Group, refurbishment Portmarnock Youth Adventure Club hall, new flooring for River Valley Community Centre and new pitch fencing for Innisfails GAA Club, Malahide.
Applications were assessed by the independent Grant Making Panel comprising Chairperson Marion Burns, HR Director DCU; President of Fingal Dublin Chamber, Guy Thompson; Managing Director of Country Crest, Michael Hoey; Dublin Airport General Manager Operations, Brian Drain and Dublin Airport Head of Marketing Louise Bannon.
Following its assessment of applications, the Grant Making Panel Chairperson Marian Burns said the panel was impressed with the “quality of submissions and the range of activities covered by organisations in the local area” that had applied. “The Fund is enabling a lot of organisations to do great work in the community,” she added.
The Dublin Airport Community Fund opened for applications for the first time at the start of September for a six-week period. Applications were received from all catchment areas of Cloghran, Forrest Little, Greater Baskin, Hollystown, Malahide, Portmarnock, Rolestown, Santry, St. Margaret’s, Swords, The Ward and Tyrrelstown.
Of the 57 submissions that did not receive a grant from the Community Fund in the current round 16 were invited to re-apply in 2018 or when the project being proposed had received the necessary planning permission. Fourteen submissions were deemed ineligible as they were from outside the catchment area.
Dublin Airport is a major economic generator facilitating almost 120,000 jobs nationally bringing huge benefits to the local community, according to Mr Harrison.
“The airport depends on many of our neighbouring communities for the 20,000 people who work at the airport, not just for daa, but also for all of the other businesses that are based here because of the airport.”
For many years Dublin Airport has supported community initiatives in areas such as sports, education, literacy and the arts. Organisations and activities that have previously been supported include; St. Margaret’s GAA Club, Naomh Mearnóg GAA Club, Swords and Malahide Young Musician of the Year competitions and Fingal Libraries’ Battle of the Book reading programme.
Support for these initiatives is continuing as part of the transitional arrangement which will ensure that relevant funding is provided to maintain these projects up to September 2018. Thereafter, all organisations will be required to apply for funding through the Dublin Airport Community Fund process.
Dublin Airport’s Community Fund will open again for applications on February 1, 2018.
The full list of approved organisations together with details on how to apply to the Community Fund can be found on the airport’s website HERE
Pictured above: Students from DCU’s Access Programme, which is supported by the Dublin Airport Community Fund: George Mihailescu, Tyrrelstown, Physics with Biomedical Science; Uduak Umo, Swords, Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science; Sidney Adeleye, Swords, Aviation Management; and Daniel Harvey, Ballymun, Business Studies.
