Time is running out to save a cash-starved project which helps older people maintain a healthy life-style.

SHAPE, the Keighley-based Senior Health Awareness Project, has just won a £5,000 emergency payment from Bradford Council.

But co-ordinator Linda Wright fears the future is grim for the project, which boomed after winning its first £104,000 lottery grant more than three years ago.

A second application for £171,000 to cover wages and running costs for the next three years has been turned down by lottery chiefs.

Mrs Wright said: "The future is very bleak at the moment and we are struggling on, but time is running out.

"When we got the bad news in March the committee decided to keep the paid workers on but reduce the hours to ten each a week. We are doing that and also coming in on a voluntary basis."

The organisation, in Temple Row, has 200 members and is run by Mrs Wright and colleagues Margaret Birtwhistle and Jean Hepworth. Three years ago it invested in a new building and still has to find £500 a month for the mortgage re-payments.

"It's ironic that as a result of getting the first lottery grant we expanded the service and went from opening one day a week to five. It was the lottery which enabled us to grow," she added.

She said they were desperately applying to other charitable trusts for help and she had a file which was bulging with applications, but as yet no promises of large scale help.

Lottery bosses have encouraged the organisation to make another application, she said, which has been drawn up and is ready to send off.

It includes ideas for encouraging ethnic minority representation and a number of new ideas, including outreach work in the community.

The group is also continuing to run fund-raising events and to raise income by charging for meals and membership.

A recently published book, What We Did in the War, which relates the wartime experiences of 23 women members, has already raised £700. It costs £2.95 and is available at SHAPE and Reids bookshop in Cavendish Street.

Today copies of the book will be for sale at a SHAPE stall in the Airedale Centre, Keighley, outside WH Smith.

SHAPE provides advice about healthy living, from what to eat to social and physical wellbeing. It also enables people to meet new friends, especially after losing a loved one.

The majority of people who attend are women, but there are a growing number of men and a special session has been established for them.

e-mail:

clive.white@bradford.newsquest.co.uk

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