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Actress Suranne Jones launched the North West leg of The National Lottery’s Britain Has Balls Tour, celebrating the great things ballsy Brits do with Lottery funding to support talent, charities and communities across the UK.

Lottery-funded projects joined Suranne in Manchester’s Cathedral Gardens on Tuesday 9 March. Dancers and musicians from the Longsight Youth Arts Project; singers from Band on the Wall’s Picturehouse Choir; climbers from Bolton Lads and Girls Club, artists from Venture Arts and WWII veteran John Clark from the Monte Cassino Veterans Association were on hand to demonstrate to the public and talk to Suranne about how Lottery funding has benefited them.

Over the next week The National Lottery’s Britain Has Balls Tour is visiting some of the projects across the North West that have benefited from the 30,000 Lottery grants given out across the region over the past 15 years. Every week Lottery players raise £25 million for good causes and thousands of ballsy people across the North West have been using Lottery funding, plus a huge amount of hard work and dedication, to make a big difference to people and places in their communities.

Suranne Jones explains, "Meeting the projects here today has been fantastic. It’s great that people in the North West are making a difference with the help of National Lottery funding. I’ve met some really inspirational people and have been hugely impressed with the projects they are part of, several of which support the arts, an area very much close to my heart.”

Daryl aka ‘Daz’ Hosker, 19, is one of thousands of young people in the North West who benefit from a Lottery-funded project.  He has attended the Lottery-funded Bolton Lads and Girls Club for the last four years.  He says: “I used to think having a good time meant getting drunk and having scraps on the street. But since coming to Bolton Lads and Girls Club I’ve realised you can really enjoy yourself by doing positive things like playing sport and helping others. The club gets young lads like me off the streets and in a safe and supervised environment. Now I volunteer at the club to help run holiday programmes and supervise activities; I’m working with young lads of 15 who were once in my predicament but are now doing something better with themselves.”

In the last year alone, over £113 million of Lottery funding has been given to arts, sport, heritage, health, education, environment, charity and voluntary projects across the North West.

To find out more visit www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/britainhasballs/northwest

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For further information contact:
gabi.downer@redconsultancy.com / 020 7025 6579
james.crowne@redconsultancy.com / 020 7025 6558
sarah.mckenna@lotterygoodcauses.org.uk / 07825 823945

Lottery funded projects participating in the Manchester event:
• Band on the Wall is Manchester’s most iconic music venue and represents a world-class programme of artists from every corner of the globe, and every music genre. It is also home to the Picturehouse Choir, who are performing at today’s event.  To date it has received £3.2 million of Lottery funding from Arts Council England and Heritage Lottery Fund.
• Bolton Lads and Girls Club provides young people with somewhere to go, something to do and someone to talk to. Originally founded in 1889, the club was in desperate need of a makeover. Thanks to Lottery funding it is now a state-of-the-art clubhouse in the centre of Bolton. To date it has received almost £5.5 million Lottery funding from Sport England, Arts Council England, Big Lottery Fund, Heritage Lottery Fund and Awards for All.
• Longsight Youth Arts Project in Manchester specialises in providing high quality music and performance opportunities for young people. To date it has received over £360,000 of funding from Arts Council England and Awards for All. 
• Venture Arts in Manchester is a unique organisation providing adults with learning difficulties a place in which to produce quality artwork. To date it has received £16,993 of funding from Arts Council England and Big Lottery Fund.
• John Clark from the Monte Cassino Veterans Association has been organising trips for World War II war veterans for 40 years and has so far received £13,200 of Lottery funding to take fellow veterans and war widows to Northern Italy where his regiment helped to liberate Florence.

Lottery funding facts you might not know:
• Since the Lottery launched in 1994 more than £24 billion has been raised for Good Causes
• Lottery-funded films have generated over 64 million UK cinema visits 
• Over half of all Lottery grants are under £5,000, helping small projects make a big difference
• Eight out of 10 of the UK’s top free tourist attractions are Lottery-funded, including the British Museum, Tate Modern and the Natural History Museum
• Lottery funding has enabled over 42,000 WWII veterans to revisit sites around the world where they served during the war
• Over £10 billion of Lottery funding has gone to projects that benefit children and young people
• Thanks to Lottery funding, land equivalent to 100,000 football pitches has been dedicated for nature conservation
• Over £1 billion of Lottery funding has been invested into projects that improve people’s health and wellbeing
• More than 500 historic public parks across the UK have been rejuvenated with over £500 million of Lottery money
• To find out more about Lottery funding, visit www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk.