The funding will allow the Tannahill Centre to continue supporting local people who want to make a difference in their local community, with the popular community hub having recruited and supported local people start and run a number of projects including community gardens, family events and festive celebrations like its much-loved Community Advent Calendar held every Christmas.

On being awarded the funding, Jamie Mallan, business transformation manager at the Tannahill Centre, said: “I’m delighted that we’ve secured this funding which will have a massive impact on the local community. I’d like to thank national lottery players, as thanks to their support we will be able to work with over 100 volunteers to deliver services and activities that make a difference to them and their community.”

The Tannahill Centre has been at the forefront of the community response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Whilst the building has acted as a hub for food distribution across Renfrewshire, volunteer numbers have more than doubled to 60 as the community rallied together to deliver food parcels and home cooked meals, deliver digital devices to those being home schooled and ran community events such as street bingo and walking trails.

The funding announcement will enable the Tannahill Centre to continue employing a volunteer co-ordinator.

Bobbie McCabe, who has fulfilled the role for the past two years, said: “I’m delighted that I’ll continue to be able to work with local people helping them make a difference in their local community, seeing all their amazing ideas become a reality over the next three years. We take a very person cantered approach to volunteering, asking what skills people have, or would like to develop and how they want to put them to use to benefit their community. 

“Sometimes this means matching them up with an existing opportunity, or referring them onto another organisation who may be better suited, buy my favourite situation is when someone has their own idea and I get to help them and watch it grow.”

Malgorzata Hayward, a volunteer with the Tannahill Centre, said: “My family received a lot of support from the Tannahill Centre during lockdown, and we decided to volunteer together and be a part of the Community Advent Calendar, decorating our window as part of the festive walking trail.

“In the summer months, during lockdown, I started litter picking in my neighbourhood and received funding from the Tannahill Centre to make my idea of turning an abandoned patch of grass into a community space. Staff from the Tannahill Centre have been incredibly helpful, listening to ideas, providing advice and giving me the moral support, I need whenever I hit a stumbling block.

“The Tannahill Centre is a special place in the community, I’ve built relationships with staff and other volunteers, that are very trusting. It’s a very accepting place and you are encouraged to be yourself. Volunteering with the Tannahill Centre has had a really positive impact on my mental health during the pandemic, I now have a lot more confidence and I am a much happier person.

“Volunteering with the Tannahill Centre has also given me the opportunity to develop a wide range of skills and experience that I’m looking forward to sharing with my community as part of the Barrochan Green Team.”