THE voting is under way as 17 worthy East Lancashire causes compete for a share of £250,000 of lottery cash.

In June, we invited grant applications after revealing that we had teamed up with the Big Lottery Fund to give out the money across the newspaper’s readership area.

Almost 70 organisations applied for grants from the Lancashire Telegraph Community Cash Awards of between £10,000 and £30,000, and a shortlist of 17 has been drawn up.

For the rest of this week, readers will have the chance to vote for their favourite project, which will be profiled each day until the end of next week.

To vote, readers must follow instructions and use the form below. The form will be printed each night until Saturday.

After votes are counted, successful groups selected to receive Lancashire Telegraph Community Cash Awards will be revealed during the week beginning September 30.

n Early Break (number 15) has applied for £30,000 to deliver an early intervention outreach service across East Lancashire.

It wishes to provide a street-based assertive outreach service for young people under the age of 21 who are at risk or are already engaged in substance-related behaviour.

It will offer brief interventions around substances and referral for young people into treatment services for their substance use or services that provide diversionary activities for young people.

The project will work within communities, along with street-based work and will, on occasion, have access to a mobile outreach vehicle and mountain bikes to provide interventions.

Early Break has been working with vulnerable young people for 19 years and has already proven successful in Bury and Rochdale.

n The Under-17s Motor Club (number 16) has applied for £16,875 to deliver road safety education to people aged from 13 to 19.

The group will visit schools with seven instructors for day-long PSHE sessions.

It will also visit youth groups, with inputs tailored to the specific needs of groups and sessions delivered as required.

Topics covered will include being a safe passenger, using seatbelts and mobile phones, being first on the scene of an accident, driving legally for 14 to 17-year-olds, car driving, bike riding and drink/drug driving.

Courses will be interactive using videos and sessions where instructors lead the students throughout the day to ensure full engagement from them.

The club has delivered pre-driver training for youngsters for the three years.