Stevenage Tesco customers to choose who bags £100,000 of community funding

The supermarket is marking its centenary with two special Bags of Help funding rounds, with a £100,000 funding pot available to a range or organisations .

With each carrier bag purchased, customers will be given blue tokens which they can then use to indicate which project they think deserves the grant money.

Shoppers voting during July will be able to choose groups delivering health and wellbeing benefits, which falls in line with Tesco's National Health Partnership.

The shortlisted projects are: Trust Links, a mental health support charity, Cardiac Risk in the Young, an organisation raising awareness of sudden cardiac arrest and cardiac screening clinics in East Anglia.

Grants of £25,000, £15,000 and £10,000 are up for grabs.

Another round of voting is set to launch later this year, givging even more projects and charities a chance to share the funding pot on offer.

Across our county, Tesco says the Bags of Help scheme - run in partnership with community charity Groundwork - has awarded £2,097,107 to more than 600 different projects and organisations.

Tesco's Head of Community Alec Brown said: "In 2019, we are celebrating a century of delivering great value for our customers.

"What better way to celebrate this occasion than by using our flagship community grant scheme, Bags of Help, to support even more groups and organisations who are helping to make a difference across Britain.

"We encourage our shoppers to register their votes while in store and help support projects delivering health and wellbeing benefits in their local area."

Graham Duxbury, Groundwork's chief executive, said: "This is an exciting time for Bags of Help.

"Many more communities have been given the opportunity to apply for funding that can make a postiive, long-lasting legacy where they live."

You can nominate a project for Bags of Help, and organisations and groups looking to find out more information should visit tesco.com/bagsofhelp.