A Wick supermarket has allocated almost £160,000 to the Caithness community with a special initiative started five years ago.

The Tesco Bags of Help (TBH) Community Funding project raised £158,000 for local groups, organisations and schools in the county with over 68 projects funded and another £100,000 raised for Highland-wide charities in the Centenary Rounds.

Tesco Wick community champion Karen Center said: "Tesco Bags of Help started back in March 2016 with three projects getting selected from the Thurso and Wick stores. They were merged together at the start and went out to our customers to vote on their desired project or groups via the blue tokens they received after a transaction at the checkout."

After the voting process was over, the tokens were totalled up and the group with the most votes received the higher part of the funding. Through the years it has changed slightly with different amounts of funding available to the groups and each store having their own funding within their region, allowing customers to vote for projects within their local community.

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After the first lockdown in March last year, TBH concentrated on supplying funds to local groups and organisations hit by the pandemic.

Karen said they were "very unusual times" but the funding "made a big difference" to many.

She added: "Having the extra support for funding groups in our community was beneficial and helped out so many. Some used the funding to pay for fuel for volunteers dropping off meals to the elderly and vulnerable, while some used it to pay printing expenses for activity packs, and suchlike, that they put out to isolated folk."

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Over nine different groups received £500 to help them out through the pandemic which included Befrienders Highland Caithness, Caithness Community Connections, Caithness Voluntary Group, Dunbeath Centre, Helmsdale and District Community Association, Home Start Caithness, Lyths Art Centre and Pulteneytown Peoples Project.

"Overall, the scheme has been a great way to help out our community," said Karen.

TBH is still running, though the in-store voting has stopped due to Covid and the projects now get shortlisted – with Caithness Boxing Club, Home-Start Caithness and Noss Primary School receiving £1000 each from an October initiative.

Three new projects that are each getting £1000 of funding from the January to March listings are Staxigoe Community Football Pitch, Wick Choral Society, and Wick Flower Baskets.

Any groups wishing to find out more about the scheme or would like to apply for community funding should visit Tesco Bags of Help website tescobagsofhelp.org.uk/ or give Wick Tesco community champion Karen an email at UK5330.Communityspace@tesco.com

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