THE Adver is giving local charities the chance to share in a huge £20,000 cash giveaway.

Our parent company Newsquest is launching its Cash for Charities drive today to support local charities across the country and we are delighted to have an allocation to give away in our area.

And we want our readers, to decide where this money should be spent.

Today we’re asking you to nominate you favourite local charities to be considered for a grant.

Newsquest chief executive Henry Faure Walker said: “Readers understand the causes that matter in their local community and they are best placed to make the choice. Everyone at Newsquest is delighted to be giving our readers the opportunity to influence how this year’s Gannett Foundation giving will be spent."

Several good causes in Swindon have benefited from previous grants, including the Swindon and Cricklade Railway, which was given money for defibrillators and Swindon Women's Aid, which won £1,650 in 2018 to run a recovery course for children affected by domestic abuse.

Charlotte Gibbon, the current leader of the children and young people’s outreach team, said the programme was a way of equipping them with the tools to recognise healthy relationships and to prevent them from becoming domestic abusers themselves in the future.

“They can harbour a lot of trauma and for them to be able to unpick, understand and recover from that is hugely important,” she explained.

Other good causes helped by grants from the foundation have included hospices, groups for the elderly or disabled, projects to tackle homelessness and schemes for disadvantaged young people. Three special awards of £10,000 each went to the Journalists Charity, the NCTJ’s Journalism Diversity Fund and the Newstraid Benevolent Fund, for people from retail and distribution firms who fall on hard times.

Making a nomination is easy. Click here or visit swindonadvertiser.co.uk/readerschoice and fill in your nomination form. Or write with the name and address of the charity you’d like to nominate and why it needs a grant to: Readers’ Choice Cash For Charity Nominations, Newsquest Midlands, Redhill House, 227 London Road, Worcester, WR5 2JG

An editorial panel will select the most deserving from all nominations received, and then readers will be invited to collect voting tokens published in the newspapers to back their choice. The more tokens collected for the charity, the bigger the share of cash awarded.