Children in Need grant to help Burnley after-school club (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Children in Need grant to help Burnley after-school club

11:53am Monday 19th September 2011 in Burnley By Tyrone Marshall, Reporter

BURNLEY Campus has received a grant of nearly £80,000 from Children in Need to continue with an after-school club for disabled children.

The Merry Berries club runs activities for children from Holly Grove School, also based at the Barden Lane campus.

But it had faced possible closure because funding was running out.

The cash will mean that the club can continue running without having to worry about how it will be funded for the immediate future.

Before the grant, the club was being mostly funded by the Burnley Campus Social Enterprise.

The social enterprise helps to fund activities on the campus, which also houses Thomas Whitham Sixth Form, Barden Primary School, Reedley Hallows Nursery and Children’s Centre, Holly Grove School, Burnley and Pendle Faith Centre, and a Lancashire County Council library.

Dionne Holdsworth, manager of Burnley Campus, said: “We are abs-olutely thrilled.

“The club has been running for the past two years and was subsidised heavily by the social enterprise.

“This money had run out and we were in threat of having to either close or massively scale down this vital resource for our children.

“The money from Children in Need means we are now in a position to offer an after-school club, with exciting and varied activities, without financial worries for the next three years.”

Burnley Campus opened in 2008 and now serves more than 1,200 children and young people.