The awards were a resounding success with a huge amount of nominations flying in for the 10 categories. The judges whittled the nominations down, finalists were chosen and invited to attend a glitzy ceremony at The Maltings in June where the winners of each category were announced and rewarded. The evening was incredibly special to everyone who attended, it was very emotional and uplifting to hear the stories of local people and the amazing things they have achieved. Tears, laughter and standing ovations were the order of the evening!
As Ely Hero Awards is a completely non-for-profit Community Event designed to reward and celebrate the most deserving and inspirational people in Ely and the surrounding villages, it was always in the planning to donate to a local charity from any surplus funds. Therefore, Ely Hero Awards are thrilled to announce, after finalising the accounts, that a fabulous £500 donation has been made to Ely Foodbank – a very worthy cause! The presentation took place on Monday afternoon at The Poets House with Cllr Ian Lindsay handing over the cheque to the foodbank on behalf of the Ely Hero Awards.
The fantastic category sponsors included Grovemere Property, Ward Gethin Archer, Thor Labs, Life Fitness, Elyi Magazine, CHS Group, Red Shoes Accounting and Puggles and Seashorse Swin Schools, media partner Ely Standard Newspaper and organisers Metro Rod Cambridge. Local Graphic Design Company, Infiniti Graphics designed the logo, website and all the promotional literature. Sadie Finch, a local Virtual Assistant collated all the nominations. The Poets House kindly hosted many of the judge's meetings for the event. We'd like to thank all the tremendous support and assistance from local businesses, without which we wouldn't have been able to pull together such a successful event, and to all the amazingly special people who help make Ely so great.
Cathy Wright, Project Director for the Ely Foodbank says
"We give out parcels for 3 days' worth of food - having fed over 8000 people in the last 5 years across our centres. We will be able to use some of this money to keep our store stocked up, especially as we hit the winter and demand will increase. We rely on people's generosity whether that is money or food because without that support we would not be able to serve the community in this way. This generous award will certainly contribute to sustaining our work and we are thrilled to have been chosen by Ely Hero Awards to receive this, thank you so much!"
