Sunderland workers who delivered 550 packed lunches to hungry families shortlisted for award

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Staff and volunteers at Frederick Street-based Impact North East have been hailed for their work to hand out food parcels, including 1,000 during the first lockdown.

It has led to Impact being entered for a Portfolio Award and the nomination said: “Impact Northeast may be small, but they are powerful.They work tirelessly long shifts every day of the year to provide for their community. They offer a wide range of services such as free training, free food parcels, counselling, family support, and many support groups for a variety of different people.“They have gone above and beyond their normal duties over the current difficult year and are brilliant and take it all in their stride.”

News of the nomination was greeted by the chief executive Sharon Boyd who said: “This has been a team effort and everyone pulled together.”

The Impact North East team which has been nominated for a Portfolio Award.

She said the nomination ‘validates what we have done’ and added: “we have just done what we could.”

Impact provides counselling, courses and practical help such as food for children, young people and families across the city.

It was founded in 2013 and also now provides support in Durham, South Shields and Redcar.

Sharon explained more about the lockdown help Impact has provided and said: “We also decided to put educational VE Day picnic packs together for families and distributed over 150 packs to help families celebrate and have celebration picnics . I produced a family relaxation guide with activities families could do at home to reduce family anxiety.

“We also made up and distributed around 550 pack lunches to support holiday hunger. I also worked for an other company and delivered 432 qualifications to learners over lock down over Zoom.”

The charity’s 12-strong team includes a number of volunteers but they ‘worked really hard ‘ to help others during the pandemic.

The latest Portfolio Awards were launched in November last year when Coun Graeme Miller, Leader of Sunderland City Council which is once again the headline sponsor of the Portfolio Awards, said Wearside had ‘faced economic crises head-on and come through them with the same steadfast focus and work ethic’.

There is still plenty of time for more companies to put their names in the hat.

A selection of the food donations handed out by Impact North East.

We are also delighted to welcome on board the partner sponsors for this year’s awards and they include Gentoo, the Autism Society, Station Taxis and Bradley Hall.

To enter the competition, follow the details below.

HOW TO ENTER.

All of the chosen finalists will get to attend the grand finale in November.