COMMUNITY SPIRIT

Newton Aycliffe | Registered Charity 1205139

Supporting Local Families | Helping Those in Need | Bringing Community Together

ABOUT US:

Community Spirit Newton Aycliffe is a local charity which aims to prevent poverty in Newton Aycliffe and the surrounding areas. The charity supports local people with grants, items or services to individuals in need and or other charities. The charity also offers local people basic life support training as well as supporting the local community with events such as Community Discos, Easter and Christmas events.

Community Spirit Newton Aycliffe works with a wide range of local organisations and charities to provide for local people who may be in need in the local community. The Charity currently offers a Wheelchair Loan Scheme, Furniture scheme as well as providing FREE Basic Life Support training to the local community. We pride ourselves on the fact that if we cannot help you, we will help navigate you to a charity who can.

  • Basic life support and bystander CPR

    Background: There is a higher incidence of cardiac arrest in economically deprived areas; however, data show that bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in those areas is lower. This results in lower survival rates, placing those communities at a double disadvantage (31 Jan 2022 National Institutes of Health )

    We offer free Basic life support training from fully trained instructors with years of experience. This training is open to everyone, we can visit schools, organisations, factories , shops etc,

    we also use a room at the Big Club newton Aycliffe to run classes for members of the public.

    contact us for dates or information.

  • Life can be unexpected, people injured or have operations which means they may be temporarily immobile this can have an impact on a persons mental health and social life even attending hospital appointments can be difficult.

    Hiring temporary wheelchair can be costly and this can be difficult for those in financial difficulty due to circumstances therefore Community Spirit runs a FREE temporary wheelchair loan scheme for those in short term need.

    If you would like to enquire about our free scheme please contact us via the get in touch form description

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Community Spirit Newton Aycliffe works with a wide range of local groups, businesses and charities to provide events to local people in the community. The Charity run a wide range of events throughout the year from Discos, Easter and Christmas events.

  • Our monthly family discos are a way to bring our local community together, where they can spend quality time with family and friends.

    All of our monthly discos are themed, ranging from Harry Potter to Disney Princesses and Super Heroes, they are very well attended and supported by The Big Club. We have fun and games with KD Discos, the Candy Queen - Sweets, The Sparkle Scene - Glitter Tattoos and Face Paint, Cakes and Hot Dogs.

    We always have a special guest to have your photo taken with.

    Our upcoming Discos:

    February 14th 2025 5.30-7.30pm- Valentines Disco

    March 28th 2025 5.30-7.30 - Superhero & Princess disco (Mothers day special)

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  • Christmas is supposed to me the most wonderful time of the year, however for some its a time of isolation, stress and anxiety. We love Christmas and we want everyone to be able to enjoy an amazing experience. Since 2019 we have run a bespoke Grotto in our town. Thanks to Palram and The Big Club we are able to offer a unigue experience free of charge to our community, Games, entertainment , see Santa and Mrs Claus, and the elves, and receive free gifts. We have our own sleigh which tours the streets in December, and over the years we have visited schools and other organisations. Not forgetting our amazing Christmas discos!

    Our whole Christmas events aid our fundraising with a huge Raffle, allowing us to support:

    • ROC solid our local children’s home, with help from the Glow Church with supply hundreds of gifts for all the children,

    • The Newton Aycliffe Food banks with food supplies,

    • the local animal sanctuary,

    • we supply gifts to the Nursing homes for those who have no visitors,

    • Local youth groups such as Scouts, Shine choir, nurseries

    • our work throughout the year


Community Spirit Newton Aycliffe works in the local community to provide opportunities to local people, this includes the opportunity to volunteer tidying the local community up, planting grass seed in areas which need it, and work with local shops to promote our Prevention not Prosecution campaign to stop shop lifting in the local town.

  • Keep Aycliffe Tidy is a litter picking project ran by Community Spirit and sponsored by Gastamp initially and supported by Durham County Council.

    The project is all about keeping the streets of Newton Aycliffe, clean and tidy. Our team of volunteers meet on an arranged morning and spend a few hours around the local town. We also encourage and support others in the local town to come along and get involved litter picking.

  • The Sow your seeds project started in Summer 2024.

    We all know parking is an issue in Newton Aycliffe but not all grass verges need to be parked on, when there is room on the road!

    Community Spirit decided to run a campaign to supply local residents with soil, seed and gardening equipment to fix their own grass verges and to encourage them to keep it maintained.

    This is a project we will run in spring 2025, we hope to get the community and schools involved in sowing wild flowers and plants also.

  • Grief is a journey that each person experiences differently and strategies which work for one person, may be less effective for someone else. Their is no specific time limit on grief either. One way which may bring comfort through the grief, is the act of writing down feelings or sharing thoughts on paper, whether that is on the day of an important anniversary or any other time of the year.

    Located within the West cemetery and Stephenson Way, community spirit have purchased the white ‘letters to heaven’ post boxes which great Aycliffe town council kindly installed and maintain, allowing people to write letters , cards and messages to those they have lost, and ‘post them’.

    The letters are confidentially turned into compost and used within the cemetries flower beds.

  • Community spirit have spent the last couple of yours working with the local shops trying to tackle shop lifting. We tried to enable communications from shops with walkie talkies, and produced a poster to allow people in need to accept help to prevent them from committing crimes leading to prosecution.