Kings receive a £2,000 Lottery boost
A WHEELCHAIR basketball club started in Thatcham has been awarded more than £2,000 of funding to help with the impact of Covid-19.
The Thames Valley Kings Wheelchair Basketball Club received £2,014 to purchase its own 24-second shot clocks, which are required due to recent success on the court for the coming season.
The Kings had been celebrating their 15th birthday and had run six of 15 planned events to fundraise for the club, but the coronavirus pandemic meant the club lost the opportunity to fundraise.
The other nine events were to fundraise for the shot clocks and were projected to cover the cost of the insurance for the 25 club-owned sports wheelchairs and other running costs.
The funding came from the National Lottery from Sport England’s Community Emergency Fund.
Sport England announced a £195m package to help the sport and physical activity sector through Covid-19.
Within the package is a £20m Community Emergency Fund of National Lottery money to deliver immediate funding to those who have a role in supporting the nation to be active, but are experiencing short-term financial hardship or the ceasing of operations due to the impact of coronavirus.
Thames Valley
Kings founder and chairperson
Jacqueline ScoinsCass said: “We are very grateful to the
National Lottery and Sport England to provide the emergency funding when we were unable to fundraise as planned through our 15 events for our 15th birthday.
“We had hoped to complete a skydive this summer as we as a number of other events to fundraise.
“We don’t know when fundraising events will be able to re-start. This funding will help keep the club going.
“We are currently awaiting the green light from our national governing body – British Wheelchair Basketball – before we re-start training.
“We have been offering our club members support and ensuring those who live alone are contacted weekly to check in on them.
“We have held weekly online sessions covering a number of topics for our club members.”
Sport England chief executive Tim Hollingsworth said: “As the body responsible for the growth of sport and physical activity participation, we want the grassroots organisations that make sport and physical activity happen in this country to not just to come through this crisis but to be in a position to thrive again in the future.
“The £20m Community Emergency Fund, made possible by National Lottery players, is part of a multi-million pound package we are providing to ease the pressure on a huge number of the organisations who are central to the nation’s health and wellbeing.
“We are proud to be able to provide vital funding to Thames Valley Kings Wheelchair Basketball Club to help it through these extremely challenging times.”