NATIONAL LOTTERY AWARDS The lockdown legends who have helped make lives better

EVERY WEEK YOU RAISE £30M* BY PLAYING THE NATIONAL LOTTERY – DISCOVER WHAT HAPPENS TO JUST SOME OF THOSE FUNDS…

Providing free weekend breaks for grieving parents. Raising awareness of cancer in the BAME community. Teaching low-income families how to cook healthy meals. These are just a few of the remarkable things people across the UK have done with the help of grants from The National Lottery.

The National Lottery Awards is the annual search to honour the UK’s favourite Lottery-funded people and projects, and this year almost 5,000 incredible individuals were nominated. The awards celebrate the amazing achievements of a huge range of projects across the UK. Other winners this year include a couple who provide food parcels using fresh produce that would otherwise go to waste, and a 16-year-old who put her own problems aside in order to help others.

We’d now like to introduce you to this year’s incredible winning line-up, across categories ranging from Health to Heritage.

And don’t forget: it’s good causes like these that benefit from the £30million* you raise every week by playing The National Lottery.

JULIE MORRISON was 37 weeks pregnant with her first child when she and husband Bryan were told their daughter Erin had no heartbeat. And despite going on to have three more children, she knows that the pain of losing her baby to stillbirth is something she’ll carry with her for life.

Julie, 40, from Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, says: “After losing Erin I tried to get on with my life, but there was little support and I was suicidal. Losing a child is still a taboo subject.

“Bryan and I felt that better aftercare would have helped us – and this was what we decided to provide for others.”

In 2018, the couple set up charity Baby Loss Retreat. It offers bereaved parents a free weekend break to help process their grief, with on-site access to support services.

During the pandemic, Julie also set up a phone and online counselling and trauma therapy service. “We’ve had lots of calls during lockdown,” she explains. “Isolation makes it even harder to cope. Now our retreats are open again, and we’re here to help.”

FIVE years ago, a school drop-off proved life changing for electrician and dadof-two Dom Warren – and many local families.

Dom, 35, worked hard to provide for his family, but realised other kids were going into school hungry. He and wife Alexandria, 33, set out to help, and ended up tackling the issue of food waste at the same time.

“I found the idea of parents not being able to afford breakfast for their children devastating,” Dom says. Dom’s Food Mission was born.”

Dom and Alexandria, from Hastings, called on friends and neighbours to drop surplus food to them on mornings, to boost the local food bank’s supplies. Now they reach 4,000 people every month.

Dom adds: “When M&S asked if we’d take its leftover food, I realised that companies were crying out for this sort of thing.

“We feed women and kids in hostels, refugees, pupils, the elderly. Good food goes in the bin every day, and it doesn’t have to.”

During lockdown, Dom and his team of volunteers have delivered thousands of food parcels to vulnerable people. They are also continuing the roll-out of their National Lotteryfunded children’s cookery school, A Helping Hand.