Two local charities have benefited from new grants from Woking District Rotary Club.

Crossroads Care Surrey received funding of £1,000 to enable 16 of its experienced care support workers to receive vital training, whilst Surrey Drug and Alcohol Care received a large £4,000 grant to enable it to continue offering its bootcamp telephone counselling service in Woking.

Crossroads Care Surrey is a local organisation which provides much-needed support to people who are providing unpaid care for someone else, usually a close relative. These unpaid carers make enormous sacrifices and often need support themselves.

The dementia training course, which was immersive and inter-active, enabled Crossroads’ professional support workers to gain a much better understanding of what it is like to suffer with dementia.

They came away with a much greater awareness of how best to provide support to carers of those with dementia.

Surrey Drug and Alcohol Care uses registered counsellors to provide first-line support to those experiencing severe problems arising from drug and alcohol misuse, using a non-judgmental and professional approach.

The new grant from Rotary is enabling it to continue to provide the service to local residents in crisis, which would otherwise have had to be scaled back.

Rotarian Gill Colbeck heads up the community team at Woking District Rotary Club. She said: “Many local charities are struggling in today’s difficult financial circumstances. Through the generosity of Woking’s citizens who supported our Fireworks Extravaganza last year in such numbers, we are able to continue to make a series of grants such as these to very worthy local causes.”

The Rotary Club of Woking District has around 40 members and meets fortnightly on Wednesday evenings.

Since its inception the club has raised over £800,000. Some 75% of funds raised are distributed to organisations and charities in the Woking area. The remaining 25% funds charitable projects abroad.