Our very own Volunteers of the Year

First things first, congratulations to everyone that won an award at the Dudley Volunteer Awards 2017! What a fabulous night it was, from the performers and speakers, to the volunteers and lets not forget the Mayor and Mayoress being present!

Such hard work had gone into making the night as great as it was and i just want to put out a big THANK YOU to everyone who was involved in planning and making it happen!

Dudley CVS awards have a theme every year and this years was that every volunteer brings colour to black and white and their community. During the night a whopping 47 certificates were handed out and 59 volunteers across Dudley have been recognised and 17 awards were given out, 2 of them being Dudley Young Health Champions- myself and Kiera Pooler.

The panel felt that the two nominees (me and Kiera) were ‘quite exceptional young people who had overcome their own challenges to help other people.‘ I can’t speak for Kiera, but my battle hasn’t ended yet, but this night was a step forward and I’m excited to get involved in even more projects that can effectively help other young people.

Kiera is a Dudley Young Health Champion and at the awards, won the Ray McGuirk Volunteer of the Year for her fantastic work! Kiera’s story is incredible and she has been extremely brave in sharing about the loss of her little one whilst also raising money to buy a cuddle cot for a local hospital giving the opportunity to parents to stay with their still born baby for 24 hours as opposed to the few hours usually allowed. Kiera is an inspiration and everyone is proud of her and her work!

“In order to raise money to be able to fund two [cuddle] cots for a local hospital Kiera set up a GoFundMe and a Facebook page; she had a fantastic response from all people around. She set up a football charity match that took place on 24th June 2017 and organised wristbands, badges and t-shirts to be made with Rogan-Lee’s charity logo on”

“The person that we’ve nominated is very special not only to us but the wider community. Unfortunately her story had to start at a very sad beginning, the loss of a birth during pregnancy as a stillbirth. It’s a devastating event to go through let alone at the young age she was at. In my perspective not only has she come through but to become the person she is today and be shaped from that experience and to utilize her experience to try and make other people’s lives better who have suffered the same as her. She used her enthusiasm and positivity to keep going with wider events, training to become breastfeeding coordinator, participating in charity things like Get Cooking classes, she’s an inspiration to me as a professional so how she must impact the lives of those in the community is inspiring” – Laura Pritchard, Family Nurse Partnership.

I was also awarded with the Volunteer of the Year, I can’t quite believe the journey I’ve been on. I’ve gone from the Prince’s Trust programme not quite knowing what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go after finishing in March, to meeting Faye, becoming a Dudley Young Health Champion and having loads of opportunities thrown at me. I have artwork being published that is going to go places to help other people, I’ve met loads of contacts that are going to help with our projects and i have a lot of things to be getting involved in with the people around me. I could never have done it without the people around me.

“She is so helpful and never says no to getting involved. Becky does things without being asked and is incredibly good at interoperating small ideas into big outcomes not just for herself but other young people.”

“She has faced many challenges in her life given her young age, these challenges all affected her ability to communicate with others, as well as believing in herself, small things we may all take for granted. This winner simply flourished, she started to give her time and talents and has literally not stopped giving and giving. This artist is also a very talented artist her modesty is as such that she doesn’t recognise how talented she is” – Just Straight Talk

 

The whole night was a blast, the performances were great! We Socialise Too showed us their moves, Coseley Male Voice Choir (who celebrate their 70th anniversary next year!!) showed us their harmonious, beautiful voices and Bradley Stokes gave us some incredible performances. Thank you to all of the performers, the speakers, the Mayor, the sponsors, the presenters, the photographers, the panel and the people who organised the event!

You are all amazing!

Becky 🙂