RAG and Bone Arts in Chippenham is in the running for a cash boost to fund its All Over It project - designed to to get boys dancing, to challenge gender stereotypes and to help them look after their physical and mental health.

The social enterprise is one of three groups shortlisted for a cash award from the Tesco Bags of Help initiative. Tesco teamed up with Groundwork to launch its community funding scheme, which sees grants of £4,000, £2,000 and £1,000 raised from carrier bag sales in Tesco stores awarded to local community projects.

Now shoppers are being invited to head along to Tesco stores to vote for who they think should take away the top grant.

"Boys often have a lot of energy, but are spending worrying amounts of time on technology, isolating themselves and damaging their mental health," said Laura Graham-May, director of Rag and Bone Arts.

"Dance is proven to be good for everyone, yet boys are nervous about getting involved and often retreat to their online world. We want to change that.

"The Rise Youth Café will hold weekly hip hop dance workshops, open to everyone and we will hold a one-day workshop with Frantic Assembly’s Physical Theatre Company, to show young men just what can be achieved with hard work and commitment, regardless of their academic success.

"A lot of young men have boundless amounts of energy, but not all of them are sporty and they don’t know how to use this energy wisely. They get easily bored and find themselves drawn to spending too much time on screens or getting involved in antisocial behaviour.

"We want to show them that there are alternatives to these things and to introduce them to a way of moving and expressing themselves that they probably haven’t discovered yet."

Voting is open in all Tesco stores in November and customers will cast their vote using a token given to them at the check-out in store each time they shop.

Tesco’s Bags of Help project has already delivered over £60 million to more than 18,000 projects across Britain. Tesco customers get the chance to vote for three different groups every time they shop. Every other month, when votes are collected, three groups in each of Tesco’s regions will be awarded funding.

Alec Brown, Head of Community at Tesco, said:

“Bags of Help has been a fantastic success and we’ve been overwhelmed by the response from customers. It’s such a special scheme because it’s local people who decide how the money will be spent in their community. There are some fantastic projects on the shortlists and we can’t wait to see these come to life in hundreds of communities.”

Groundwork’s National Chief Executive, Graham Duxbury, said:

“Bags of Help continues to enable local communities up and down Britain to improve the local spaces and places that matter to them. The diversity of projects that are being funded shows that local communities have a passion to create something great in their area. We are pleased to be able to be a part of the journey and provide support and encouragement to help local communities thrive.”

Funding is available to community groups and charities looking to fund local projects that bring benefits to communities. Anyone can nominate a project and organisations can apply online. To find out more visit www.tesco.com/bagsofhelp.