THE Pride of St Helens Awards, sponsored by Mikhail Hotel & Leisure Group, will take place on Friday, November 22.
In Thursday's Star (November 14 edition, in shops now) we published a 16-page supplement profiling each of the shortlisted nominees for this year's ceremony.
Throughout this week ahead of the event at the Totally Wicked Stadium, we will be sharing our categories of nominees with you.
Here are your nominees for the Mikhail Hotel and Leisure Group Pride of St Helens Awards – Community Impact Award, sponsored by Halton and St Helens VCA.
BuzzHub CDP
BUZZHUB CDP recognise that living with a learning disability should not exclude people from society or limit their opportunity to live a meaningful and fulfilling life, reach their potential and enhance their skills.
The group offer a number of services that enrich the lives of service users, meaning their community impact is felt not just to those they aid but their loved ones too.
Day support offerings enables people to access a variety of activities such as dance, music, cookery and more and social and leisure activities provide opportunities for socialising and independence. The service also offers short breaks, recognising the important role that informal carers play and the sacrifices that they make.
On discussing the nomination for Community Impact Award, David Webster, service development manager at BuzzHub said: “It’s amazing recognition to be nominated for this award as it highlights the fantastic work over 30 years of all our volunteers and staff who work so hard.
“We aim to have a family atmosphere at BuzzHub and our ethos really is that everybody has an ability or interest and our job is to help them find that or adapt things to allow then to engage with it to enrich their lives whatever guise that may be, so we are incredibly proud to be shortlisted.”
Town in the Town
AFTER seeing success as volunteers running community activities for St Helens Town AFC, Annmarie Houghton, Gill Ellison and Mike Bagshaw formed, Town in the Town’, to allow them to focus on the increasing needs of the St Helens community, whilst addressing mental and physical wellbeing head on.
‘Town in the Town’ enabled the trio to access resources, to develop their work and their plans; to help improve the health and wellbeing of the St Helens Community. A grant provided opportunities to deliver weekly football sessions for asylum seekers, refugees and other forcibly displaced individuals aged 16+.
Fostering inclusivity, community integration, and addressing loneliness and isolation, the young men are now good enough to form the amazing, ‘Hope United’.
‘Town in the Town’ has big plans for the new team, and to build on these strong foundations to create even more exciting programmes and activities.
On their nomination, Gill said: “We only founded in July this year so to be recognised in such a way is incredible really and a big deal for us.
“We just started really with a reunion night of ex players and their families to bring people together and as time went on we realised the need and what we could do.
“To be recognised like this after such a short time is amazing.”
Standing Tall Foundation
SINCE its creation, The Standing Tall Foundation has been a huge help to the St Helens community. Founded by friends John Tabern and Corporal Andy Reid MBE – a former Pride of St Helens winner who has gone on to help so many after suffering life-changing injuries while on patrol in Helmand Province, Afghanistan - the charity aims to help those most in need in society.
They have helped to tackle issues such as homelessness, suicide, job loss, depression, addiction, and various mental health scenarios, much of it at their own expense and time.
Each fresh case presents a whole new set of circumstances to deal with and resolve or put measures in place to help.
Now the Standing Tall Foundation has progressed to offering structured programmes of help from its STF Hub on Borough Road in St Helens, whilst still maintaining its ability to intervene on a personal and individual level.
If people are at crisis point, for whatever reason, The Standing Tall Foundation aims to help people get back on track and get much needed support.
CEO and Founder John Tabern said: “We are delighted to be nominated for this award. “It represents a great deal of hard work by team STF in helping our local community, which is central to our purpose.
“We would like to thank the Pride of St Helens selection committee for seeing fit to include us in the final three.”
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