Community Hero Shortlist 2022
We’re delighted to announce that the shortlist for the Community Hero Award 2022, sponsored by Hurtigruten, has been revealed!
This accolade will recognise one agent, or one agency team, which has worked hard to give back to others – whether in their local community or communities overseas – in the last 12 months.
Each of the shortlisted agents (or a representative from the shortlisted branch) will be invited to attend the TTG Top 50 ceremony on March 24, where the winner will be revealed.
Michelle Bielecki, facilities manager, Agiito
In the lead up to Agiito’s offices downsizing last year, the TMC’s facilities manager Michelle Bielecki tasked herself with redistributing leftover furniture and equipment in the most benevolent way to benefit the community and environment.
Michelle contacted the charity Emmaus, who work with the homeless community in Manchester, offering them the £7,000 industrial kitchen from Agiito’s Derby office. The kitchen will now be used to refurbish the Emmaus community café, which helps generate funds for the charity and supports dozens of jobs for homeless people.
As more Agiito workers became home-based, Michelle arranged for 600 pieces of furniture, worth £15,000, from the York, Taunton and Derby offices to be donated to local schools and the NHS. A further 300 desks went to Emmaus, where they will be sold to raise around £5,000 in funds.
To avoid obsolete telephone headsets going into landfill, Michelle sent them to communication company Corptel where they will be refurbished and sold.
Michelle’s recycling efforts were achieved working two or more extra hours a week on top of her day job over six months. Colleague Sarah Maia says: “She not only identified charities and community groups in need of these items, but simultaneously saved the planet, as well as saving Agiito over £13,000 that it would have cost if we’d had to dispose of these items, which was amazing considering the challenging year the industry has had.”
Katie Hamlin, director, KTz Travel
KTz Travel director Katie Hamlin supports a long list of charities, helping them with their local fundraising efforts. She regularly donates holiday vouchers of between £200 and £500 at the agency’s own expense for prizes, then often encourages her team to join her at the charities’ events to help sell the related raffle tickets, enthusing attendees about the holidays they could put the winning vouchers towards.
Recent charities Katie has supported include Charlie’s Cancer Support and disability cause Whizz Kidz. The 11-year-old son of regular customers is disabled himself and a keen Whizz Kidz fundraiser, so Katie does what she can to help him in his latest ventures.
Katie also established a food donation point at the agency last year, collecting and delivering supplies over several months for a homelessness charity and, inspired by the school meals crisis, for a local food bank.
Her staff say that despite the business stresses of the last year and juggling the demands of being a single parent of two she always puts others first.
Katie says: “My sister had a brain haemorrhage about eight years ago and a lot of people helped us at the time so, so it's good to give something back to the community.”
Hays Travel, Whitley Bay team
The Hays Travel team at Whitley Bay prioritised and adapted their community work in 2021 to take account of the pandemic.
The team organised six coach trips in November and December to raise money for their three chosen charities – Pathways for All, which provides play and leisure facilities to disabled children; the North Tyneside Disability Forum; and homelessness charity Street Warriors, where branch manager, Darren Wetherell is also a volunteer.
The trips ran over six weeks and took 300 customers to Christmas markets in York and Edinburgh. Extra onboard fundraising activities included raffles, bingo and quizzes and in all £4,402 was raised. The agency also collected food donations for Street Warriors.
Darren says: “When the pandemic struck we wanted to give our support as much as possible because we knew many charities suffered from a lack of fundraising opportunities. We had to adapt our ways of supporting them though, and instead of as many events as usual we started collecting food items to donate and giving our personal time, as many charities were suffering from a lack of volunteers.”
North Tyneside Disability Forum CEO, Sue Adams, says: “NTDF have been so very fortunate in the support we have had from Hays Travel Whitley Bay. Not just cash donations to help us, but Darren’s hands-on support in his free time.”
Harry Lightfoot, director, Fusion Holidays
In December 2021 Fusion Holidays agreed to become a local pickup point for a Christmas toy appeal organised by the local radio station for under-privileged children in the West Sussex area that had been identified by several charities. Agency director Harry Lightfoot also offered a free collection service from Portsmouth, near his home, for anyone there who wished to contribute.
After seeing a slow response locally to the radio station’s appeal and the agency’s own requests, Harry decided to raise funds through an online campaign. This enabled further-flung friends, family and national customers to be able to buy additional toys for the appeal. Harry also approached local businesses and vendors to ask for extra donations and deals.
Throughout December he gathered more than £300 in cash donations and used this to buy and collate appropriate gifts for children aged from babies to teens. Just before Christmas he then personally packed and dropped off more than 175 presents collected and bought through the joint efforts of the radio station campaign, Fusion Holidays’ additional fundraising and the support drummed up from other local independent businesses. These all went to deserving children including on a children’s ward in a local hospital and at a women’s refuge.
Shakeel Ahmed Syed, director, 7Seas Holidays
Concerned about the low take up of vaccines by BAME people in his community, Shakeel Ahmed Syed approached a GP surgery with the idea of running a pop-up vaccination centre. He got his mosque involved to help raise awareness and organised a Zoom session to enable locals to quiz doctors. On March 23, in a hall Shakeel had hired for free, with his agency team coordinating and 10 health professionals administering jabs, 1,200 people received their vaccinations. The pop-up returned for second doses on June 8.
As a member of the Chamber of Commerce, Shakeel was well informed about how to apply for local authority pandemic grants, so he also offered his guidance to various small businesses, saying: “we’re closed due to Covid but we’re here to assist you.”
Throughout the crisis, Shakeel and volunteers have helped deliver groceries and prescriptions to people self-isolating, also donations for food banks and meals for NHS staff. Last year Shakeel also raised £1,000 for the Wandsworth Mayor’s regeneration charity and £300 to help health charity Full Circle to fund therapies.
In September, Shakeel was acknowledged in the Wandsworth Mayor’s Roll of Honour for his significant contribution during the pandemic. As a bonus, the goodwill generated has already resulted in new clients. “There was no [travel] work but at least we could do something towards the local community,” says Shakeel. “We all needed a bit of positivity”.
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Email Emma Dixon at edixon@ttgmedia.com or call on +44 (0)203 714 4123.
For any other queries about the event, please contact Sarah Lewington at slewington@ttgmedia.com.
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