The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting every industry, and the underprivileged such as the low-income families are bearing the biggest brunt. Since the outbreak, some businesses have closed down while others are facing insolvency. Many manual labourers have lost their jobs and income streams and the poor are under a lot of financial pressure. In view of the situation in Hong Kong, CEDAR Fund allocated a total of HK$500,000 to set up the “Journey through Pandemic Crisis – Short-term Food Assistance” Fund (hereinafter referred to as “the fund”), for the purpose of encouraging local Christian churches to offer help to the needy who have difficulties in coping with their daily food expenditure in the short term.
All eligible churches are invited to apply for funding to provide food relief, free meals in their canteens or discounted pre-packed meals to the underprivileged in their communities. Each successful applicant church will receive a maximum grant of HK$80,000. The application deadline is 20th April 2020.
Details of the scheme
Objective
The purpose of this funding scheme is to support local Christian churches to care for the underprivileged in their communities and help the poor meet their basic needs during the pandemic.
Content
1. Eligibility requirements
The fund is open for application by Hong Kong Christian churches only, with regular church attendance of no more than 300 people. Each church can only apply once. The applicant church must list out other funding sources (if any) of its food-relief programme. If full funding from another organisation / funding agency is granted / applied, the application would be regarded as repetition and hence discarded.
2. Grant amount
The maximum grant for each successful application is HK$80,000 (funding support will be on actual amount of expense)
3. Application deadline
The deadline of application is 20th April 2020 (Monday). For application by email, the date of email will be regarded as the date of application. No late applications will be accepted.
4. Application and approval process
Please complete the application form and email it to CEDAR Fund before the application deadline. Upon receipt of your application, we will start reviewing it. CEDAR Fund’s staff may visit your church or conduct a video discussion with you to understand the details of your church programme. We will inform you of the result of your application two weeks after the application deadline.
5. Award of grant
The grant will be awarded to the successful applicant church in May 2020. We will notify the applicant how we will release the grant.
6. Completion date of the programme
Successful applicant church should complete its programme before September 2020.
7. Report of the programme
By the end of the programme, a narrative report, photos, stories and expense report (with receipt copies) must be submitted to CEDAR Fund. Successful applicant church must also participate in a sharing session organised by CEDAR Fund between July and September 2020 (date and format to be announced).
CEDAR Fund reserves the rights to use any of the information of the programme in our organisation’s publications, website, email communications and on our social media platforms.
8. For any objection or disputes, CEDAR Fund reserves the final decision power.
For enquiries, please contact us:
Tel：(852) 2381 9627
Fax：(852) 2392 2777
WhatsApp：(852) 6383 6861
Email：hkrelief@cedarfund.org