COMMUNITY groups in York have hit the lottery jackpot - through a local project fund.

The Awards For All scheme, which provides grants for small community projects, has itself received a boost.

Groups can now apply for grants of between £300 and £10,000, a wider range than the £500 to £5,000 previously available.

Awards for All England is the small grants programme run by the Big Lottery Fund. More than £287 million has been awarded since the scheme began eight years ago.

Many groups in York have already benefited from the grants.

Rufforth Parent-Teacher Association won a £5,000 grant to build an adventure playground at the village school.

Mark McDermid, head teacher at Rufforth Primary School, in York, said: "The PTA have been working very hard on providing facilities for the children at the back of the school.

"We've been looking at the adventure playground idea for a number of years. The children were involved in the project at a very early stage, and have had a lot of input in the design.

"We had it all fully designed and costed, the only stumbling block was the funding."

Poppleton Arts Appreciation Society was given more than £3,000 to buy new digital audio and visual equipment.

The society, set up to encourage interest and activity in all the arts, has monthly talks and run a number of trips to concerts, the theatre and stately homes throughout the year.

Society secretary Christine Spencer said: "This equipment will help us move with the times - a lot of our speakers expect to use this type of modern equipment.

"It's absolutely wonderful - we're all thrilled."

Stagecoach Youth Theatre, a group threatened by the loss of council grants, was awarded £5,000 to help fund its production of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.

Manor School, in York, received more than £500 to implement an arts awards programme.

Wigginton Recreation Hall and the York Scout Activity Centre, in Stockton-on-the-Forest, won £5,000 each to improve their facilities.

Jessie's Fund, the York-based charity which provides music therapy for seriously ill children, was awarded nearly £5,000 to set up an office in the city's Priory Street Centre.

Vanessa White, Big Lottery Fund head in Yorkshire and the Humber, said: "Awards For All is a great way to channel Lottery good causes money to local projects, that make huge improvements to people's lives with comparatively modest amounts of money.

"The new funding brackets will help even more projects to grow and extend their services and thousands of people will continue to see the benefits that lottery grants can bring, when they are put straight into the hands of hard-working community groups."

Updated: 10:05 Tuesday, April 04, 2006