Two Charity Champion Of The Year Nominees!
The Annual North East Charity Awards celebrate charities, the voluntary sector and the people and companies that support them. This year’s celebration evening will take place on Thursday 19 September at The Fed in Gateshead. We have the pleasure of knowing two of the nominees for the Charity Champion Of The Year!
Leia Easby – Young Charity Champion of the Year, North East Charity Awards
Fourteen year old Leia Easby has turned the tragic loss of her brother Thomas into an opportunity to help other children process their grief and cope with bereavement. At age eleven Leia lost her younger brother due to 8p23.1 Deletion Syndrome. When leaving the hospital where Thomas passed away her parents received a memory box but Leia received nothing.
This has inspired her to create ‘Leia’s Gift in Memory of our Thomas’, these are boxes that contain a journal and pen to help children express their feelings privately, in their own time. The boxes also contain a cuddly toy, photo frame and bracelet amongst other items designed to help children deal with their bereavement. Leia has also used her experiences to create a letter that she includes within the boxes to explain that recipients are not alone and show her understanding of the issues that they are dealing with.
Leia visited Butterwick House, our Children and Young Person’s Unit in Stockton on Tees, to highlight the work that she does with her charity and kindly gift a number of her boxes for some of the children supported through our counselling services.
This has prompted Butterwick to nominate Leia for Young Charity Champion of the Year with the North East Charity Awards in recognition of her fantastic work in supporting other bereaved children. She has, subsequently, been shortlisted in her category.
We wish Leia continuing success in with her charity and hope that she enjoys the recognition of attending the awards. She is a fantastic young lady who is achieving so much in helping others. Her inspirational work demonstrates that she truly is a Young Charity Champion.
Eddie McNamee – Charity Champion of the Year, North East Charity Awards 2024
Eddie has been a tireless supporter of Butterwick House, the Children and Young Person’s Unit at Butterwick Hospice Care since the year 2000 when he responded to an advertisement on the side of a bus, asking the public to raise £2k to support the ongoing care of the children who use the unit.
Since this time Eddie has raised in excess of £25k through a series of fundraising activities including sponsored walks, blind cards and his legendary football sweepstakes.
His latest fundraising venture was launched this year with the intention of raising £2025 to mark his 25th year of supporting our charity, in January 2025. However, he has already surpassed this target by June 2024 and is well on his way to achieving his revised goal of £5k.
Eddie has developed a winning strategy for engaging the local community and utilising social media to increase support for his initiatives, with his winning formula making him one of our most prolific fundraisers.
His ongoing work on behalf of our Children’s Unit not only brings in valuable income but also raises the profile of our Charity overall, something which is vital in this challenging financial climate. His use of social media helps us reach a much wider audience than traditional methods of communication and broadens the spectrum of supporters we are able to attract.
It costs in excess of £7k per day to keep our vital services running and without the unwavering support of community fundraisers like Eddie, volunteering to give up their time to support us, we would not be in a position to maintain the range of services that we offer to the local community.
In recognition of Eddie’s unwavering support for Butterwick we recently nominated him for Charity Champion of the Year with the North East Charity Awards and are delighted to announce that he has been shortlisted in this category.
Eddie will be attending the upcoming awards ceremony with his wife Sue on September 19th at The Fed in Gateshead. We wish him every success on the evening and whatever the outcome he is definitely a Charity Champion for Butterwick!
Good luck to both Leia and Eddie!
