Community Hero Shortlist 2022

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.