The Bone Marrow Cancer Trust’s new $12 million Ranui House expansion in Christchurch received a notable funding boost from the latest round of grants from the Otago Community Trust.
The Trust was awarded a $500,000 grant to support their new multimillion-dollar project. Ranui House provides a home away from home for out of town patients and their families from across New Zealand needing hospital treatment in Christchurch.

Otago Community Trust Chair Ross McRobie said the ethos of Ranui House is to keep families together, during what can be extremely stressful time, enabling families and patients who are often in a life-threatening situation, to lead as normal a life as possible in difficult circumstances.

“The new apartments, spread across two multi-level buildings will bring the total apartments available to 68, allowing the Bone Marrow Cancer Trust to extend its services to even more out of town patients and their families”.

The Bone Marrow Cancer Trust provided accommodation for 722 patients and their families totalling 1414 people for the year ending 31 March 2019, of the 722 patients close to 10% were from districts within Otago region.

Otago Peninsula Trust received a $85,000 grant to assist with their capital works programme. This will specifically see the Royal Albatross Centre undergo a roof replacement and it is planned that the Centre’s new roofing solution will ensure a better environmental outcome for the Otago Peninsula Trust. Solar panels will be installed to provide for the energy needs of the Centre and the impending desalination plant planned.

Otago Community Trust was also pleased to award Teviot Prospects a $30,000 grant to support the development of the Roxburgh Skate Park. The new skateboard park will be located at the King George Memorial Park alongside the current children's playground, toilets and picnic area in Roxburgh.

Ake Ake Theatre Company also received a $10,000 grant to support their Dunedin Summer Shakespeare production of Romeo and Juliet. The Romeo and Juliet production will be a site-specific outdoor event presented at the Dunedin Botanical Gardens in February 2020.
The Dunedin City Council and Otago Community Trust Art & Culture capability grants were also approved at the September meeting. A total of thirteen organisations had capability funding approved for a variety of initiatives ranging from māori engagement, theatre training to website development and professional reviews. The fund is a joint initiative with the Dunedin City Council, that sees both organisations contribute $30,000 to fund these capability projects.

Otago Community Trust chief executive Barbara Bridger said the fund has now been in place for three years and it is pleasing to see a wide range of local arts and culture groups using the fund to build capability and capacity in different ways to support the Dunedin City Council - Ara Toi, The Arts and Culture Strategy.
The Otago Community Trust approved just over $830,000 to 42 organisations in September 2019.

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