Bath Half Marathon Fund Continues to Support Local Charities and Voluntary Groups

Details of community grants funded by runners’ donations has been announced by Running High Events, organisers of the Vitality Bath Half Marathon, which have been awarded to local charities and groups from the 2015 event.

Each year race entrants are invited to make an optional donation to the Bath Half Marathon Fund during the registration process as a ‘thank you’ to the local community for their support for the event. The Bath Half Marathon Fund, established in 2003 and administered by the Quartet Community Foundation, distributes cash grants to local community groups and charities.

£164,000 has been provided in grants for local sport, play and active lifestyle projects so far, making a real and valuable impact in the community. In addition, using government match funding, runners’ donations have also created an endowment fund of £160,000 to provide a permanent source of future funding for local community groups.

A total of eight grants were awarded from the 2015 Vitality Bath Half Marathon and went to Age UK Bath & North East Somerset, Bath Rugby Community Foundation, 93 (City of Bath Air Corps, Mentoring Plus, Leonard Cheshire Disability, Whitelands Springfield and Tyning Community Association, Timsbury Preschool and Swallow. Full details about the projects supported since 2003 and application details for the 2016 Bath Half Marathon Fund can be found here.

Race Director Andrew Taylor visited the Bath Rugby Community Foundation this week to hand over a cheque of £5,000 which will help the Foundation sustain their Inclusive After School Club.

Andrew Taylor commented: “Thanks to the generous donations of our runners we are proud to award a grant of £5,000 to the Bath Rugby Community Foundation to support the Club and help keep children with special educational needs active.

“Over the last thirteen years runners’ donations have been quietly making a difference to the lives of people living in Bath & North East Somerset. The relative affluence of Bath conceals pockets of severe deprivation and rural isolation, comparable with some of the most deprived areas in the UK. The invaluable work of the smaller charities and voluntary groups in addressing these issues often goes unrecognised.

“We are very proud of our runners, whose generosity helps support local sport, play and active lifestyle projects in the community, and on behalf of these local charities and voluntary groups we want to say a huge and heartfelt thank you to everyone who has donated to the fund so far.”

The Vitality Bath Half Marathon is one of the most iconic and longest established races on the running calendar. Entries for the Vitality Bath Half Marathon on Sunday 13th March 2016 are currently still open but the organisers have advised that public places will sell out over the next few days.

Go to www.bathhalf.co.uk for further race details and to sign up to run, like the Facebook page and follow @bathhalf #bathhalf #runbath on Twitter to keep up to date with all the latest news about the Vitality Bath Half Marathon.