Two Shipley charities have received £160,000 between them which one has described as a “gift from heaven.”

Community arts charity Hive has been given £90,000 for a three-year project helping people with mental health issues and learning disabilities and The Cellar Trust will receive £70,000 on Wednesday to run a charity shop which will train people in retail.

The Bradford District Association for Mental Health is giving money to organisations working with people with mental health issues, after it was forced to close its residential home earlier this year.

Trustees of the body, which was founded in 1963, are sharing about £600,000 raised from selling assets.

The charity’s home for men, Queens Grange in Heaton, had to close in April when organisations were invited to bid to provide services and it was not in a position to do so.

Hive’s Queens Grange Project will focus on teaching transferable skills using creative processes, helping 200 people over three years with education projects, including woodworking, ceramics and general arts.

Joy Hart said receiving the funding was “amazing”.

“In the voluntary sector everything is right down to the line. We had a few projects coming to an end and it was starting to cut it a bit fine in terms of having to think about reducing what we could provide. It really has come at the most amazing time,” she said.

Trustee chairman Joyce Baruch said: “There’s a lot of people who will be receiving the benefits of what they’re doing. They’re certainly going to enhance the lives of people that are going and make them feel they’ve got something useful to do.”

Cellar Trust chief executive Marilyn Beech said the money was “like a gift from heaven”. “We’re just so very grateful. we’re just a small Bradford charity and always struggling for money,” she said.

  • Mental health organisations interested in receiving support should e-mail joyce baruch666@btinternet.com.