All applications for Spark are currently closed.

Spark News in Brief:

Spark 2009 finished with a celebration event hosted by BT at the BT Tower on November 25th. Enterprises from Spark 08 and 09 were there with Beyond Boyle providing canapés and their new truffles, as well as the Sparklers showcasing their exciting new businesses. The partners BT, Places for People and PricewaterhouseCoopers showed their full support for Spark speaking directly about the business benefits, and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Housing, Ian Austin MP gave a key note speech praising the endeavour and achievements of all the social enterprises and individuals involved in supporting and enabling Spark.

The Sparklers pilot programme, which launched in Spring 2009, has also completed the first year of funding for individual entrepreneurs who had come from a background of homelessness to seek investment and support for their own business ideas. The ideas shown by the 7 Sparklers who won investment this year have been highly innovative and they are now seeking new business and further investment to grow and succeed in bringing their products and services to market.

This year we have also seen some amazing achievements by the Spark 2008 social enterprises. East London based Bikeworks won the Social Enterprise of the Year Award in November and has won a contract to deliver bike tours of the new Olympic site in Stratford. Gilead has also seen its Wholesome Cream Cheese business grow and they are in the process of buildling new accommodation blocks that will allow them to double the number of service users they can provide places for. Strong partnerships have developed between the 08 winners and the Spark partners, with BT and Acumen Trust delivering a regeneration contract in Teeside in the North West. We look forward to being able to report further on these success stories as Spark goes forward into 2010.

Spark 2010 is not due to open for applications until March next year, but should you have any queries now then please don’t hesitate to be in touch. The management team at Eastside will happily help answer any queries you have on 02077706144; please ask to speak to Carey-Anne or Rachel.

New Partners: Please send us an e-mail if you’d like to know more about joining our high profile panel of Spark partners, supporting social enterprise and helping to make homelessness history.

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