PRIDE AWARDS
The work of West Lothian’s unsung heroes was recognised at the first Pride of West Lothian Awards recently.
The awards ceremony and dinner was staged by HNC Event students from West Lothian College at the Almondvale Suite, Livingston Football Club.
And “Outlander” star Scott Kyle was invited as a special guest to hand out an award for the special recognition category.
The Special Recognition Award was presented to Katrina McCready. Katrina was 20 when her father passed away and this led her to raise money for cancer research on the anniversary of her father’s death.
Since then, every year for 10 years, she has held a ladies’ day, which has raised a total of over £40,000.
These funds have been donated to several charities as well as to the local gala day, local children who are battling cancer and to the Sick Kids Hospital in Edinburgh.
The Child or Teenager of Courage Award went to Logan Young.
Logan has had to deal with more heartbreak than any child should have to deal with. But instead of being defeated by these negatives, he has found a huge amount of bravery and courage and found positivity in adversity. He has come such a long way in a short period of time and has raised £6000 for charity.
The Local Fundraiser Award was given to Maureen Casey.
Since Mrs Casey joined St Margaret’s Academy in Livingston, it has raised a massive £20,000 for various charities including Mary’s Meals, Macmillan and SCIAF. Mrs Casey is the driving force behind the school’s charity group and she also supports a number of the young people in the school to develop their confidence and sense of personal achievement.
The Young Fundraiser Award was presented to Tegan Johnston, Rebecca McComb, Corey Robertson, Mark Battison, Elise Marshall and Nicola Smart.
The loss of a friend and classmate can be a devastating event. However, for the group of students from Armadale Academy they channelled their grief into fundraising to buy a defibrillator for their school. The students held fundraising events in their school, and raised £12,107. This meant that they had enough money to buy a defibrillator for their school and three more for the community. The group also donated £4600 to various charities.
Teacher of the Year Award went to Yvonne Drummond.
Throughout her time at Armadale Primary School, Mrs Drummond established the school choir and she was instrumental in staging the school’s outstanding productions which they put on twice a year.
She has also worked with cluster groups outwith the school to write and produce an anti-sectarianism production. This led to a network choir for West Lothian elderly to be organised.
The Outstanding Community Achiever award went to No Limits.
The group hold a number of different sports clubs in West Lothian and encourage children and young people to take part in sports. Along with working closely with other charitable organisations in the area No Limits actively raises awareness for Disability Sport and were awarded the Queens Award for voluntary service in 2015.
The Outstanding Adult award was won by Aiden Brown.
At 21 years old, Aiden has been through numerous operations but never complains about his condition.
He has overcome every hurdle in his life and has shown a level of determination which is unknown to most of us. There is no wonder that this young man received over 20 nominations and has been awarded for Outstanding Adult.
The Judges Choice Award went to Mags Parsons-Fenwick.
Bosom Buds of Scotland was started in November 2009 by mother and daughter team, Mags and Kate. The charity was started as Kate herself was a patient and her mother Mags worked to raise money to provide the kind of supports the NHS can’t provide cancer patients.
Sadly, on January 30, 2016, Kate lost her battle and sadly passed away. Since then Mags has continued with the charity and has to date raised almost £500,000 to support thousands of local cancer patients and their families.
Hazel Brady, head of the Business and Creative Centre at West Lothian College, gave her congratulations to the winners.
She said: “All of the nominees were equally deserving and the college is very proud to be able to recognise these individuals with such a high-profile event.
“The event raised an amazing amount of money for the charities which were nominated by the students. The success of the event can be attributed to the hard work of the students, our generous sponsors and the support and generosity of our local community. This event reminds us of our fantastic community within West Lothian and I could not be more proud of our students.”