Selfless Bristol volunteers celebrated at food charity awards night Monday 20th September saw, food redistribution charity FareShare hold its annual volunteer awards, which celebrates the hard work and dedication of the food charity’s 1500 volunteers. This year’s winners include; FareShare South West’s Emily Yates, who won Fundraising Volunteer of the Year Award, Stephen Ness who won the award for Driver’s Assistant of the Year, Debbie Wyatt won Office Volunteer of the Year and lovebirds Denise Dale and Barry Coles who shared the Highly Commended award for Warehouse Assistant of the Year. Winner of Fundraiser of the Year award, Emily Yates, took part in a Comic Relief Challenge of a 100 kilometre hike – three marathons, over three days. As a result, the challenge managed to raise over £800,000, split between 4 charities including FareShare. Her team have said “we are so proud of Emily for both her volunteering efforts, and her outstanding contribution to national fundraising”.
Having met whilst volunteering at FareShare South West over five years ago, FareShare are delighted that Denise and Barry are engaged to be married this autumn. Congratulations to the happy couple. Phoebe Ruxton, Director of Fundraising and Communications at FareShare South West said: “We’re incredibly grateful for the hard work of all of our volunteers, and it’s fantastic to have an evening to celebrate and recognise their achievements from the past year. A huge congratulations to Emily, Stephen, Debbie, Barry and Denise for their awards.” FareShare’s annual awards ceremony took place virtually, hosted by Alyson Walsh, Commercial Director at FareShare.
“Words can’t express how much volunteers have helped us during the pandemic. We’re incredibly grateful for the support of all our volunteers and hope they find their experience rewarding by knowing their hard work helps Stephen Ness won Driver of the Year for his local people, whilst saving food from waste. It commitment and enthusiasm to the charity would be impossible to carry out our vital work over three and a half years, he’s been dewithout the dedication of our volunteers. We scribed by his team as “an excellent navigator are always looking for new people to join us. with a photographic memory”. If you can spare a couple of hours, we would love to hear from you.” Debbie Wyatt won this year’s award for Office Volunteer of the Year. Having volunteered for FareShare’s volunteer awards saw the most the past couple of years, Debbie has been a amount of awards given due to the huge asset to the team at FareShare South challenging circumstances of the past year. West, taking on new tasks enthusiastically During 2020/21, FareShare South West and is always friendly and welcoming. redistributed more than 2,597 tonnes of food to people at risk of hunger. That’s the equivalent Barry Coles and Denise Dale were nominated of over 6 million meals redistributed to 372 local charities. by their team for their tremendous selflessness, reliability and loyalty throughout Find out more about volunteering at FareShare. their volunteering. 42
