CHARITIES in Dorset are in the money thanks to the latest round of Gannett Foundation grants.

Four charity groups in the county have been given almost £11,000 by the charitable branch of Gannett, the firm that owns Dorset Echo publishers Newsquest.

* Dorset Youth Association has received a whopping £4,000 to help it cater for homeless young people in Dorchester.

The money will be spent on modernising the association’s Routes coffee bar and kitchen area in North Square at a cost of £2,500 as well as to buy and install a washer dryer for £500 and modernise the shower room for £1,000.

The association’s youth fundraising officer Aimée-Louise Malcolm said: “This is really good news.

“At the moment we’ve got a number of young people who use this space and have been asking for the coffee shop to be developed into more of an informal, drop-in centre space for young people.

“This money will give us an increased capacity to have more young people in and to use this as a social space.”

* Dorset Search and Rescue (DorSAR) has been given £2,950 to buy 10 Memory-Map Adventurer 2800 GPS units at £295 each to help with its life-saving work.

DorSAR secretary David Wraight said: “We went through a patch earlier this year where we were broke so this is a big help.

“One of the things we need to be able to do is get on the ground as quickly as possible and these units will help us to do that.

* Dorchester Amateur Boxing Club has been given £2,800 to buy a treadmill.

Head coach Ben Geyser said: “We’re more than grateful to be getting this money.

“The treadmill will be used for our members to undertake interval training, meaning they will run flat out for 10 seconds and then revert to a steady jog for 30 seconds.

“It’s amazing how far this kind of training can get you.”

* Waterside Weymouth Community Forum has been given £1,247.

The money will be spent on a Butterfly Space Saver Rollaway 22 tennis table costing £655.45, a 202 TTMatic table tennis machine costing £474.95 and a pack of 72 table tennis balls costing £16.95 with an extra £100 for other items.

Forum chairman Dave Burchill said the equipment would help more disabled members of the Gateway Club to develop their fine motor skills.

He said: “This is good news and I’m absolutely over the moon.”