In May 2019, Round 2 of the Small Ideas, Big Impact fund opened for submissions. The fund was set up to encourage people across Scotland to create and develop ideas around the theme of older people living well via food.
Our new report highlights the impact of work completed throughout the period of May 2019 – January 2021 and is based on 22 projects which received funding.
Funds between £50 to £5000 were available to test out or extend initiatives which help prevent, detect and/or treat malnutrition in older people, and the fund was specifically designed for individuals, community groups, social enterprises, charities and public-sector workers.
In total, we received 77 applications, requesting a sum of £290,112 across all 14 Scottish Health Boards. We were able to increase the total amount of grant funding from Round 1 to £92,457 which enabled us to support 24 projects across 13 Scottish Health Boards.
The funded projects supported a total of 1322 older people across Scotland through activities ranging from lunch clubs, intergenerational cooking groups to Zoom cookery demonstrations and awareness raising through resource development.
As result of the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent shielding restrictions, many of the funded projects adapted their original project to focus on immediate provision of food such as delivery of hot meals, snack boxes and/or shopping deliveries. Several projects received increased referrals to their service and as such, had to rapidly expand to encompass new areas and/or additional service users.
Funded activities have had an impact in the following ways:
• Increased food access
• Identified and addressed malnutrition
• Increased health and wellbeing
• Decreased social isolation and loneliness
Read the report in full below: