Tag: Craigmillar Literacy Trust

Vittoria Group donates £8k to its local community

Family-run restaurant group has donated £8,000 to local charities and initiatives over an eight month period

A charitable initiative launched by the family-run Vittoria Hospitality Group has donated over £8,000 in its first six months, supporting a range of Edinburgh-based charities and community organisations.

Established in November 2025 as part of the Vittoria Group’s 55th anniversary celebrations, the Giving Back programme supports grassroots organisations making a difference across the capital, helping people living with disabilities, those facing homelessness, and local young people.

Unlike traditional grant programmes, Giving Back focuses on funding specific items requested by organisations, ensuring donations have a direct and lasting impact.

In its first eight months, the initiative has provided vital, targeted support across the city, including specialist technology and sensory equipment provided to young people with complex or additional support needs at Teens+, Prospect Bank School, and Braidburn Special School.

The fund has also delivered essential supplies for women experiencing homelessness via Sparkle Sisters, supported youth development and literacy resources for the Pilmeny Development Trust and Craigmillar Literacy Trust, as well as sponsoring new sports kits for Redpath Albion FC and vital funding for Muirfield Riding Therapy.

In addition to the £8,000 donated by Vittoria Hospitality Group, one of its suppliers, JB Foods Scotland, contributed a further £1,000 in December.

Leandro Crolla, Director of Vittoria Hospitality Group, said: “When we launched Giving Back, we wanted to create something that would make a real difference to local organisations doing incredible work in our communities.

“Seeing the reaction from the charities, schools and groups we’ve supported has shown us how even relatively small donations can have a significant impact when they reach the right people.

“Edinburgh has supported our family and our business for more than 55 years. This programme is our way of saying thank you and helping strengthen the communities that have been part of our story for generations.”

Talking about the donation of a new football kit for the entire team, Bryan Maughan, coach at Redpath Albion FC, said: “The boys and parents loved them. We wore the matchday kits for the first time at Currie, and they certainly brought us luck as we secured a great 6–2 win in monsoon-like conditions.

“The boys haven’t forgotten the offer of a breakfast roll either, and we’re all looking forward to the visit.”

The initiative is led by the Vittoria Hospitality Group, one of Edinburgh’s longest-established family-run hospitality businesses, now in its fourth generation of family ownership. 

Recipients of the donation are chosen through a monthly staff vote, giving employees across the group’s venues the opportunity to nominate and support causes close to their hearts. Schools, charities, youth groups and community organisations across Edinburgh are encouraged to apply for future rounds of support. 

For more information or to nominate a local cause, contact:

givingback@vittoriagroup.co.uk.

£97,000 Lottery LIFT for Muirhouse Millennium Centre

Muirhouse Millennium Centre is among twenty-seven community groups across Edinburgh are sharing in a £717,108 cash boost from The National Lottery Community Fund today.  

The Millennium Centre receives £97,000 to ‘provide a range of community activities within Muirhouse Millennium Centre engaging approximately 150 local community members and four volunteers.’

Muirhouse Millennium Centre is also the base of LIFT (Low Income Families Together), who run a range of services from the Millennium Centre.

Thanks to an award of £53,463, Leith-based Fast Forward (Positive Lifestyles) Ltd will be able to continue their ‘Ask Dad’ project – a health education and training programme for dads and male carers across Edinburgh and the Lothians -for another three years.

Mark Hunter, Project Officer, Ask Dad, said: “Thanks to this support from The National Lottery Community Fund our ‘Ask Dad’ programme will be able to continue to support dads whose families are going through a period of difficulty. 

“We’re looking forward to developing our work to date, including our Good Conversations programme, supporting parents to have what they perceive as awkward, difficult, or embarrassing conversations with their children.

“We are looking forward to working on our new programme, ‘Dad: The Invisible Parent’ which will support better awareness and understanding by practitioners of the challenges faced by dads, to improve their engagement and communication with dads, towards better outcomes for their children. 

“In addition, by working with parents who feel ignored or unwelcome by service providers, we aim to improve their ability to communicate with services and to understand a service provider’s role and their limitations.” 

Better informed, more confident dads improve the wellbeing of the whole family. They also improve their children’s educational attainment. These impacts are even more profound in the communities affected by poverty and inequality.

An award of £114,344 means that Craigmillar Literacy Trust will continue to provide their support to local families with babies and children up to nine years of age for the next three years.

They will also be able to run their new ‘Express Yourself’ programme for older children and young people aged up to the age of sixteen using digital media and performance to support them to connect with literacy in a way that is more relevant to them.

Kara Whelan, Project Manager, Craigmillar Literacy Trust, said: “This grant will support our work with babies, children, young people, and families in Craigmillar though our early literacy, family literacy and young people’s projects. 

“Our work is relationship based and embedded in our community. We are looking forward to building on the strengths we have and to developing new and innovating approaches to supporting literacy in our community.”

Edinburgh Tool Library receives £9,500 to help with the costs of a Volunteer Co-ordinator who will deliver a bespoke training programme for volunteers as well as making links with other third sector organisations in Edinburgh and will help the group engage with new communities and neighbourhoods across the city.

Chris Hellawell, Founder and Director, Edinburgh Tool Library, said: “This support will allow us to reach communities that we haven’t yet spoken to before, help us enhance the support we give to our community and to produce materials to share with other organisations like ours across Scotland so we can amplify the impart of all the hard work or our volunteers in Edinburgh.  Thank you so much.”

More Edinburgh projects celebrating today include Ama-zing Harmonies, Big Hearts Community Trust, Leith Community Centre, LifeCare and St Columba’s Hospice.

Across Scotland 179 projects are sharing in £5,752,948 today. Announcing the funding, The National Lottery Community Fund’s Scotland Chair, Kate Still, said: “Local community groups bring people together to support one another through difficult times.

“Sometimes this is as simple as providing a listening ear and other times it can be a real lifeline connecting people who might otherwise be lonely and isolated. Each of the projects receiving funding today in Edinburgh remind us of the power of social connections and the difference that community projects can make to people’s lives.

 “National Lottery players can be proud to know that the money they raise is helping to support this vital work.” 

 The National Lottery Community Fund distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and more than £30 million a week is raised for good causes across the UK.

Thanks to National Lottery players, last year we awarded over half a billion pounds (£588.2 million) of life-changing funding to communities across the UK. Over eight in ten (83%) of our grants are for under £10,000 – going to grassroots groups and charities across the UK that are bringing to life amazing ideas that matter to their communities.