{"id":109870,"date":"2025-12-10T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bendigotimes\/?p=109870"},"modified":"2025-12-04T17:25:43","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T06:25:43","slug":"city-shares-tens-of-thousands-to-spread-christmas-cheer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bendigotimes\/news\/city-shares-tens-of-thousands-to-spread-christmas-cheer\/","title":{"rendered":"City shares tens of thousands to spread Christmas cheer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A NUMBER of local community groups will be able to host free community festive meal events or provide food relief hampers in the lead-up to Christmas thanks to the City of Greater Bendigo, which handed out up to $2000 to each.<\/p>\n<p>Almost $31,000 in grants were awarded to not-for-profit organisations including the Salvation Army, Eaglehawk Uniting Church, the Long Gully Neighbourhood Centre and Bendigo Baptist Church.<\/p>\n<p>Greater Bendigo mayor Cr Thomas Prince said the festive meal events are aimed at supporting local community connections and inclusion during the festive season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This year, we&#8217;ve been able to fund 18 local groups to deliver meals and hampers in the lead-up to Christmas,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The grants have made it possible for a range of small, local (gatherings) to be held across Greater Bendigo rather than one large event taking place in central Bendigo.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;(They) also respond to an identified whole-of-municipality gap in food relief at this time of the year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The events are always well attended and are aimed at helping people meet others in their community and learn more about the work of local groups.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re really pleased so many local groups are again hosting events as we know that having opportunities to connect with others is very important for community wellbeing, especially at this time of the year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The events give local groups a chance to showcase their great work and demonstrate how others can get involved.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The full line-up of events is listed on the <a href=\"http:\/\/bendigo.vic.gov.au\/about-us\/news-and-media\">COGB website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A NUMBER of local community groups will be able to host free community festive meal events or provide food relief hampers in the lead-up to Christmas thanks to the City of Greater Bendigo, which handed out up to $2000 to each. Almost $31,000 in grants were awarded to not-for-profit organisations including the Salvation Army, Eaglehawk [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bendigotimes\/news\/city-shares-tens-of-thousands-to-spread-christmas-cheer\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":109873,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-109870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>City shares tens of thousands to spread Christmas cheer - Bendigo Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"City of Greater Bendigo awards nearly $31,000 in Christmas grants, helping local groups host festive meals and provide food relief hampers.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bendigotimes\/news\/city-shares-tens-of-thousands-to-spread-christmas-cheer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"City shares tens of thousands to spread Christmas cheer - 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