Hard choice

Funds at stake for groups

Stirling Soup is back on the menu this weekend, giving five more local projects the chance to win community funding.

Soup 4, will take place on Sunday, September 24. at the Mayfield Centre from 3-5pm, as part of Stirling Festival of Volunteering, with entertainment provided by Stirling Wellbeing Choir.

The concept of Soup is simple. You donate £5 (or more if you can) for a lively afternoon of food and live music, listen to pitches from small community projects who want to improve life in Stirling and vote for your favourite. At the end, the winner takes away all the donations.

To date the successful crowd-funding event has raised over £1895 for local causes and this Sunday five more hopefuls will bid for public support :

Green Aspirations Scotland, a Balfron Station based social enterprise which runs woodland workshops and teaches traditional skills.

Square Peg, a small Stirling based charity which offers animation and art workshops for young people from vulnerable and challenging backgrounds.

Wee County Men’s Shed, a community project aimed at promoting men’s health and wellbeing in Clackmannanshire.

Raploch Hearts Kids, a children’s football club aimed at bringing the community together.

Stirling’s Chess Extravaganza, a family event using giant chess pieces to rekindle the nation’s love of chess.

Soup Organiser Kathryn Welch said: “We were delighted to get more applications than ever before to pitch at this event, our 4th Stirling SOUP. Short listing is always a tough job, but it’s fantastic to have such a range of causes and projects represented. I can’t wait to hear more from each of the pitchers and learn more about the brilliant work that’s going on in our community.”

Inspired by the movie ‘I, Daniel Blake’ and the Bag for Katie campaign, there’ll also be a special collection at Soup 4 as Kathryn explained: “We’ll be collecting donations of sanitary towels and tampons for Stirling Food Bank to help local women who are living in poverty. So please bring along a donation if you can.”

Tickets reserved at www. stirlingsoup.eventbrite. com Entry , £5 donation.