Dear friend,
In January 2020, we enjoyed another successful fundraising Burns Supper; celebrating together, the life and works of Robert Burns at the eloquent Prestonfield House, whilst raising thousands of pounds for the OneCity Trust, ‘Edinburgh’s social inclusion charity.’
In a pre COVID19 world, we would have joined together again tonight for celebrations and to raise much needed funds for the charity. Details of the projects we have supported in the past can be viewed at www.onecitytrust.com.
The last few months have been tough for everyone; the impact of the COVID19 pandemic has been far-reaching as most of the world continues to practice social distancing, or some form of local ‘lock downs.’ This has had devastating effects on the economy, business, charities and personal wellbeing, to name but a few of the many issues that we have been faced with.
The OneCity Trust did in the summer of 2020 distribute grants worth £180,000 to organisations within Edinburgh; yet the number of applications and value of funding being sought was well over £408,000 and far outweighed the funds we had available to distribute into the community.
The pandemic has seen our income from donations reduce greatly and now with our annual fundraising Burns Supper unable to go ahead, we have very little income available to use in the 2021 Main Grant funding programme and it is expected that the need in the city is even greater than it was a year ago!
We have set up a crowd funder page at https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/onecity-trust-main-grant-funding-programme-2021 where we are kindly asking our supporters to help us raise much needed funds to help many of the small-scale organisations in Edinburgh that reach out to us for help.
Your donations would be greatly appreciated this year and hopefully, we will be able to see each other again next year!
Until then, stay safe
Yours Sincerely
Frank Ross
The Rt. Hon. Lord Provost of the City of Edinburgh & President of the OneCity Trust
