True champions of community recognised
Two of Teesside’s community champions have been recognised for their hard work by meeting the Prime Minister.
Deborah Gale and Cheryl Scollay were both invited to Downing Street after picking up the Community Champions Award. Both women were nominated by Stockton South MP Matt Vickers for their hard work and were accompanied by him in London, where they met Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday.
The Community Champion Awards recognises people from all corners of the UK for the work they do to help others.
Cheryl Scollay, Chair of Yarm Wellness, a charity run by 30 volunteers in a refurbished primary school, works with other volunteers on improving the wellbeing of Yarm residents. In the centre, Cheryl and the team run a number of community projects including a Veterans’ breakfast morning, pensioner’s lunch, support groups, and a men’s health ‘Manter’ group among others. As well as this, Yarm Wellness also runs the Wellness Choir, set up to help people socialise, improve mental health and physical wellbeing through singing and performing.
Speaking after receiving her Community Champions Award, Cheryl said: “In a short space of time our charity and its volunteers have impacted so many lives locally but for the Government to hear about us was a little bit overwhelming. A truly special once in a lifetime day and we had so much fun.”
Deborah is chair of the Community Public Access Defibrillators Ingleby Barwick (CPAD IB) Fund, which is a campaign group who set out to install defibrillators across the town. In December 2021, despite guidance suggesting everyone should always be within a 500-meter radius of an Automated External Defibrillator (AED), there was not a single externally mounted, 24-hour access defibrillator in Ingleby. In just over a year, there are now over 20.
CPAD IB Fund have trained thousands of children in early CPR and defibrillation as part of a Healthy Hearts initiative, trained hundreds of the general public, monitor and maintain all of the defibrillators, and continue to raise awareness.
The devices have been deployed over 40 times already.
Deborah said: “We had a lovely time, and it was really nice to be able to share the experience with Cheryl from Yarm Wellness. I particularly enjoyed looking around the Houses of Parliament. We hope this recognition inspires other communities to consider their community public access defibrillator provision and we are proud to be able to support neighbouring areas and businesses.”
Both Cheryl and Debs received an email last Thursday, giving them less than a week’s notice that they had been nominated by their local MP to receive a Community Champion Award and they would meet with the Prime Minister. After a tour of the Houses of Parliament, they met Rishi Sunak along with other community groups from across the country at 10 Downing Street to discuss their community work.