A YORK charity that helps rehome mistreated and unwanted animals has been nominated for a share of thousands of pounds The Press is giving away to good causes in our area.

The RSPCA York, Harrogate & District is seeking a share of the £16,000 The Press is giving away in its Cash for Charities drive.

Dawn Carlin, of York, has nominated the RSPCA York, Harrogate & District based at Landing Lane.

She said: "RSPCA York Animal Home needs ongoing support with vet bills. When animals come into the home for many reasons, some require urgent medical attention. The cost of this is then covered by RSPCA York Animal Home, as you can imagine some of these costs are very high."

She added: "RSPCA York, Harrogate & District is an independent charity and although we receive support from the national branch we are primarily self-funded.

"We take mistreated, unwanted and abandoned animals and work hard to find them their forever home.

"We rehome on average 400 to 500 animals a year. At York Animal Home we never give up on a re-homeable animal."

Readers have been nominating local charities for a share of the cash. Nominations are now closed.

The next stage is for Press editors to select ten of the most popular local charities to be featured in this year’s grants scheme.

We’re then going to put the power to allocate the cash back into the hands of our readers – for four weeks between October 24 and November 20, readers will be invited to collect tokens from our newspapers which can then be sent to collection points across our region or posted.

Each token collected will then be used to allocate cash to the nominated charity – so if your favourite charity collects 50 per cent of all the tokens collected, it will receive 50 per cent of the funding.

Entries must be registered charities and must not have received a grant from the scheme within the last two years.

Grants will not be awarded for payments such as salaries, professional fees or day-to-day running or maintenance costs or projects that do not bring benefits to local communities.

One of last year’s winners was York Rescue Boat – and the charity said it would spend the money on its educational outreach programme, which often works with young people.

Grants have been awarded in the past to York charities including Holgate Windmill, which used the money to buy equipment enabling it to produce flour, Citizens Advice York and The Regen Centre, a charity in Riccall which used the funding for its ‘Changing Places’ project - adapting one of its changing rooms at its community centre for people with disabilities.