Moffat CAN bids for People’s Millions Award

Jun 24 2011 by Sharon Liptrott, Dumfries Standard Friday

COMMUNITY-OWNED charity Moffat CAN is currently in the running for an ITV People’s Millions Award of £60,000 for their new project, Tasty Waste.

They will feature on Border’s Lookaround next Wednesday and are appealing for residents across the region to dial a special voting telephone line which will only be announced on the day.

Votes increase the chance of Moffat CAN (Carbon Approaching Neutral) and Tasty Waste winning the cash, which would create three new jobs and help secure their current workforce.

Convenor Alis Ballance, said: “We really need everyone to vote for us. Winning the People’s Millions Award would mean so much and enable us to get on with our new Tasty Waste project, which would help us employ more local people as well as being good for our health and the environment. ”

The phone number will be released on the Jubilee People’s Millions website www.jubileepeoplesmillions.org.uk next Wednesday morning and it will be possible to vote from then.

The number will also be shown on Lookaround at tea-time so that viewers can vote.

Alis says it is important that everyone remembers to vote as it is just for that one day.

Moffat CAN organisers plan to contact supporters to urge them to vote as soon as the number is released. The number will be posted on the Moffat CAN website at www.moffatcan.org

In preparation for the voting day, TV crews have been in Moffat to make a film all about the Tasty Waste project and showing the huge community support there is for the environmental scheme.

Local children from Small ’n’ Tall nursery helped make the Moffat CAN film by singing a special song and asking viewers to vote for the project.

Pupils from Moffat Academy Primary called in to the Moffat CAN base in the town to show their support and find out more about the projects under way.

Alis said: “Tasty Waste is a wide-ranging project focussed on using waste well, turning it into a resource. It will help bring the community together and enable more people to grow their own food.

“It will start a gardenshare scheme so that elderly folk who cannot tend their gardens can be linked with folk who have no garden but want to grow their own.

“And because food waste is a real problem to get rid of, Moffat CAN want to start collecting people’s vegetable waste to turn it into compost to grow tasty fresh food. Using, not throwing away.

“This will, in turn, provide food for the fish in CAN’s new state-of-the-art aquaponics greenhouse – the first in Scotland.

“Fish and vegetables grow in the same water, with the waste products from the fish being used by the plants. The plants clean the water for the fish, and the fish nourish the vegetables.”

She added: “The Tasty Waste project will help develop and grow this new system, so that local people can eat locally-grown food – and so that other communities can see how it works and develop their own systems.”

The charity will be up against another organisation on the day which is also seeking the lottery cash.

The People’s Millions is a grants programme run by the Big Lottery Fund in partnership with ITV.

Since 2005 it has made 463 awards worth £24.5 million and some organisations in the region have benefited.