Life Leisure’s Sport Development Team is bidding for a massive cash boost from the Tesco Bags of Help initiative.

Tesco teamed up with Groundwork to launch its community funding scheme, which sees grants from £1,000 to £4,000 raised from carrier bag sales in Tesco stores awarded to local community projects.

Three groups in every Tesco region have been shortlisted to receive the cash award and shoppers are being invited to head along to Tesco stores to vote for who they think should take away the top grant.

The Life Leisure Sport Development Team are one of the groups on the shortlist with one their important project, ‘Bridging the Gap’.

The programme provides disadvantaged young people in Stockport, aged 11-19, with a free multi-sport activity programme and nutritious lunch during the school holidays, with funding to support an expanded Whitsun holiday programme in 2018.

Running at a number of local community venues across Stockport, sports coaches engage with young people through the provision of a varied and vibrant offer, in addition to tackling holiday hunger, isolation and inactivity.

Samantha Barton, Community Sport Officer at Life Leisure, said: “We are thrilled to have made it to this stage of the funding process.

“This project makes a huge difference to local people’s lives throughout the holidays and helps many children and their families in the Borough so we’d like to encourage as many people to come out and vote for us.”

Voting is open in all local Stockport Tesco stores throughout March and April, and customers can cast their vote using a token given to them at the check-out in store each time they shop.

Tesco Bags of Help has already delivered over £40m to 9,700 projects up and down the UK.

Tesco customers get the chance to vote for different groups every time they shop. Every other month, when votes are collected, three groups in each of Tesco’s regions are awarded funding.

Alec Brown, Head of Community at Tesco, said: “There are some fantastic projects on the shortlists and we can’t wait to see these come to life in hundreds of communities.”

Groundwork’s chief executive, Graham Duxbury, addd: “We’ve been thrilled to see the diversity of projects that have applied for funding, ranging from outdoor classrooms, sports facilities, community gardens, play areas and everything in between.

“We’re looking forward to learning the results of the customer vote and then supporting each group to bring their project to life.”