If you won EuroMillions, what local causes would you fund?

[pinkksugarmouse]

Recently a UK resident won £181,073, 415.70 Over One hundred and eighty one million. Incredible. So you've won the euromillions. What cause or causes or problems in your local area would you want to tackle? I would like to do loads of things. But here are a couple. This is just for fun. Let's keep it lighthearted.

We need accessible children's playground's so that all children can join in.

I would like to set up better transport services for disabled people too. Not just shared rides where someone might have to travel many stops before arriving or getting home. And they could run much later so disabled people can have a better evening social life.

There are so few youth services. We need youth groups. There were some but they closed due to local funding. One was specifically for teens and young adults on the autistic spectrum. My daughter used it when she was younger. Its so sad that it closed.

Simply put I’d have to invest it all first then from that I’d love to build a decent children’s home next to a decent care home and set each up with investment funds to manage them. Then I’d decide where else to help out.

A massive donation to Women’s Aid to fund lawyers, advisors, and a big lovely-to-live-in refuge with studios, I, 2 and 3 bed apartments. (£50m? £100m?)

A big donation to a local arts project, funding high quality engagement projects (£2m)

I would open a good friendly pub in our local high st, a coffee lounge during the day, craft beers etc at night and wholesome good value food. (£5m)

I’d like to do something similar, there is such a shortage of appropriate and affordable housing for older people. I’d also donate to our local branch of Age UK, and set up a fund to help children get privately assessed for ADHD, the waiting list for NHS is so long.

Some kind of credit union. IF it could be well run and safe. Ways to make banking and handling money easier and less costly for people who are not particularly tech savvy or are in complicated personal situations.

Debt and money worry. With a bit less of that, you can maybe see your way clear on other matters.

I'd set up a housing association x

Local kids in care. Local outdoor space projects. Local hospitals.
And I would branch out and look for young people to sponsor for going to uni. A bit like the project Michael Scott in the Office did (or didn’t!) where he promised a class of kids if they got top grades when older, he’d pay for their tuition. He didn’t have the funds in the end, but they still had the grades to go to uni because of him. I’d do that somewhere I used to live, where it was very low income & kids were unlikely to keep on with education past 16.

This is going to sound strange, but hear me out. Nearish to me there are a few vintage railways and transport museums, and you can ride short sections of railtrack on their refurbished old trains, including steam trains. They’re staffed by lovely volunteers. They have warehouses filled with old engines, carriages and other vehicles they’ve acquired. They have lots of skilled volunteers who’d happily do the work. But they lack money to fund the work.

If I won mega-millions, I’d give them a lot of money. And that would allow these highly-skilled retired men to pass on their knowledge and skills before that knowledge is lost forever. And think of all the vintage engines (trains, buses, cars) that could be brought back to life!

Funding disaffected youth up North, especially east Lancashire

We have a local food bank come advice centre. I’d donate to them. We also have a day centre for the elderly who are picked up, taken for lunch and some activities before being taken home again. I would like to help them too.

We have a local dog rescue centre owned by a married couple. They’d get help. I’d also out funds into our local rugby club who do so much about town. We are rural so they help out a lot.

We have a huge lack of wrap around care locally. I don’t know how but I’d like to try and start this and support it for years to come.

Youth groups and a university scholarship fund covering all costs
Food banks
wildlife conservation
senior care
local churches conservation
Invest in local community centre

theres so much!!

I'd like to set up a housing association that offers properties at a genuinely affordable rate.

This is my dream and more of a motivation to win the lottery than buying anything for myself!
-Local food bank. There’s a teenaged boy near here who started his own food bank, so I’d support that
-Uniform bank, they collect and redistribute uniform and other school bits.
-Animal rescues- the smaller, struggling ones
-And yes to a project to enrich the lives of the elderly, especially something to combat loneliness
-We have a local nursing home and some of the residents don’t have family, so they don’t get Christmas or birthday presents, I’d love to help them out
-Something to support families who have a child in hospital long term. The cost can really add up.
-We have a city mission which distributes toys to children at Christmas, who wouldn’t ordinarily get anything
I’m sure there are more
I do help some of these in small ways, but I’d love to do more

I’d start a school for high functioning autistic girls in our area - there’s nothing locally

And I’d start an every 15 minutes bus service from our village to the nearest town. There are currently 2 a day.

I often think of this when I cannot sleep .

• build a multi storey staff car park at our nearest hospital. There’s so much building going on there, the staff have to overspill to the visitor/patients car park.
• Donation to the haematology dept in same hospital
• donations to several local charities , including mountain rescue and Cotag - a lovely group of 4x4 drivers who rescued and transported people stuck in the January blizzards.
• once that’s done, probably set up a trust to review individual causes as they arise - I would have loved to have tried to regenerate some old buildings into affordable housing, but the hoops that have to be gone through are just too much to make it viable.

I'd pay for the business rates of every independent retail front business in my town.
I'd set up a restaurant in my small town, plus 11 other local small towns, and I would employ 12 chefs with different cuisine specialities. Every month the chefs rotate, so that the towns get a chance to eat Korean one month and Mexican the next, for example. Profits from this would go into a trust to continue to pay for the business rates idea after I'm gone.

Orchard memorial gardens.

Parks designed with teenage girls in mind. Good lighting, swings, hammocks, benches.

Fabulous thread, OP.

The cat rescue I volunteer for would never have to worry about money again.

And the group of volunteers who are working really hard on regenerating the local park would suddenly have all the cash they need too.

I'm hearing you. That sounds great. The older generation of knowledgeable men can create something even bigger if they had the funding which would be enjoyable and educational for younger generations. Especially children and this would make a fantastic low cost activity for families, schools and kids groups to attend. A multi-generational local project.
Fantastic.

Arts - local theatres, galleries and literacy/reading charities.

I'd fund a talking therapy service for children and young people with additional needs suffering from depression or anxiety.There is absolutely nothing for them in our area at the moment especially if you can't afford a private therapist.

I'd also give a massive donation to our Hospice at Home service.

I'd give grants people from working class backgrounds trying to make it in the arts so they could pay the rent and eat while they were trying to make it - maybe enough to cover a year or two.

I would also set up a trust that would restore buildings and rent them out an an affordable rate to local businesses that have community value.

I would really love to do this in memory of my dad who was a music teacher. It's really hard for people without money to access extra curricular activities in a serious way now. I'd also support DCs scouts, a couple of local bereavement charities and a cafe that offers work experience to people with disabilities. I'd set up a cafe or food van catering for people with dietary needs as there are so few places and I'd also love to run a retreat centre. With that sort of money it could be not for profit making visits more affordable.

I'd start two of my own charities.

One with kind, caring, trauma-informed cleaners and such. They would help people with excess belongings and cleaning issues to stay in their homes.

The second would be good quality housing for young people leaving care. With lovely staff, mum/aunty types with experience in fostering. There'd be skills acquisition, coaching, a slow introduction to adult life. And every single one of them would be welcome for family roast on a Sunday forever.

Some better facilities for our local state schools and better sporting facilities in our County - there’s really very little here and I think sport is so important for mental health but compared to the rest of the Country we’re waaaay behind!

Smaller stuff - set up a fund at DCs school so trips and enrichment activities could be subsidised (or free for the families that need help). Do the same for the scouts/guides. Annual monetary donations for the food bank, air ambulance, hospice, blood bikers. Annual donation for the parish council who plant flowers and keep the village looking nice.

Bigger ideas - improve the local play parks, with some more accessible equipment and also some equipment for the bigger kids. Given I live in a village, improve the bus routes into the local city for access to college/university and employment for local young people, but also ensure all kids have access to a bike and a helmet. My kids aren’t old enough for me to know if this is a problem yet, but possibly fund driving lessons for kids in our community who need it as they’ll struggle for employment if they can’t drive.

Biggest idea - a new leisure/community facility for our (rapidly growing) village. I’d want to find some way to invest money for upkeep and ongoing costs so membership/activity prices would be minimal for years to come, but that it could be kept in nice condition.
It would have a gym, studios that local dance/exercise/sports teachers could rent for a nominal fee to host classes, tennis/squash/padel courts, and a 25m pool. I’d include a bigger space for the library (currently a volunteer run hub which has limited space). Ideally I’d include a clip and climb and a soft play, plus some water slides/ splash pool elements too.
There’d be a youth club space, safe, well lit, discreet staff presence, accessible until 9pm, with board games, pool table, TVs etc.
I’d probably also try to include other community services, like meeting spaces to rent, showers and laundry facilities for a token cost, a small commercial kitchen/dining room for hire so the local luncheon clubs could use it, and people could rent the space to host parties.
Local schools could use the pool for swimming lessons, and there’d be public lessons too, but there would still be public swimming during evening, daytime and weekend slots.

I regularly raise money for schools to have washer dryers for pupils to use if they wish/need.

I was bought up in a very neglectful household and not having clean clothes got me bullied relentlessly and caused so much upset for us.

we have white goods in 8 schools so far. And at the weekend we watched a short program about children not having beds so that’s our next project x