It was 300 years ago that local land owner James Marshall left a remarkable  gift, creating a charity that would support young people to achieve long term employment. That charity, James Marshall Foundation (JMF), continues today to award grants to young people under 25 years in financial need for education and career development opportunities. The charity has annual grant funding of £250k, which is generated from its asset base, and awards around 500 grants.

After ensuring that the Foundation was on a sufficiently sound financial footing, JMF received approval from the Charity Commission in late August 2021 to expand its catchment area to add a further 4 villages to the existing locations of Harpenden and Wheathampstead. These are Kimpton, Redbourn, Flamstead and Markyate where, particularly through secondary schooling, young people have a strong link with the existing catchment area. We feel that the expansion is such a positive way to start the year of the 300th anniversary of the Foundation: to increase the number of young people whom JMF can awards grants to, whilst still being able to continue to generously support those in our existing locations. This is probably the most significant change to JMF over the last 300 years.

The journey through education and into work can be an expensive time. The key areas where JMF may be able to help are:

• Equipment and travel for work/apprenticeships
• Further education courses
• Apprenticeships/College/University costs
• Extra-Curricular activities: sport, music, creative arts
• Scouts/Guides and DofE
• Laptops and printers
• Residential school trips
• School uniform

We are always delighted to hear back from our beneficiaries and recently received the following feedback “It’s lightened the load massively and you’ll never know how much the grants mean to us”.

The application form can be found on JMF’s website: www.jamesmarshallfoundation.co.uk.

Please do get in touch if you think JMF may be able to help.