NORTHUMBERLAND Street based New Life City Church have received a grant of just under £50,000 from the Whitemountain Programme to upgrade their centre and reduce their carbon footprint.
The City Life Centre on the Shankill-Falls interface welcomes over 2,500 people each week from various cultures and communities for a range of cross-community activities that promote good relations.
The church will use £48,796 to upgrade the City Life Centre in order to continue their work delivering an accessible range of opportunities for physical, mental and personal development for their local community.
The Whitemountain Programme is managed by Groundwork NI and was established by Whitemountain who are part of the Breedon Group, a leading contracting and materials business, specialising in highway maintenance, civil engineering, as well as quarry materials and waste management.
Since is beginnings in 2008, the Whitemountain Programme has distributed over £8 million of funding to 260 community and biodiversity projects. This funding helps groups to achieve their plans for positive change in their community.
Welcoming the funding, Pastor Johnny McKee said: "City Life Centre is situated on a peace line on Northumberland Street in West Belfast. The projects based within the centre such as City Life Projects, GLOW, The Warehouse Project and Hobby Horse Playgroup help serve the local community in a vast amount of ways through a simple coffee in the coffee shop to structured programmes helping with mental health and personal development.
"Cross-community projects help promote reconciliation and facilitates the building of new relationships. With the valued help of Whitemountain we will be able to do much-needed work to help improve the centre with new flooring, lighting and heating that will also help us reduce our carbon footprint."
Shannon Downey, Communities Lead with Groundwork NI said: "We are delighted to support the City Life Centre, a unique reconciliation centre in one of Belfast's most notorious interface areas.
"The City Life Centre supports the local community through their good relations and reconciliation work and it is fantastic to see the Whitemountain Programme supporting projects like this."
Whitemountain's Russell Drew added: "Supporting the New Life City Church in upgrading their centre is exactly what the Whitemountain Programme was designed to do.
"The New Life City Church is a hub for people from many different backgrounds and this funding will enable the organisation to continue to provide opportunities for the local community."
If you have a great community or biodiversity focused project which lies within the 15 mile radius of Mullaghglass landfill site then you could also receive funding from the programme.
To find out more visit their website or email them at whitemountainprogramme@groundworkni.co.uk
