What a venue for our awards finale!

The finalists in this year’s Best of Wearside Awards will find out if they have won on Thursday, March 28.

They will learn their fate in the grand surroundings of the Stadium of Light which has been a magnificent backer of the competition for years.

Sales manager Jennifer Lee Wright said: “The Stadium of Light are delighted to host and sponsor the Best of Wearside Awards again this year. These prestigious awards are a firm favourite in the Stadium’s annual calendar!

“We look forward to welcoming all guests on the evening and celebrate both group and personal achievements in the local community.”

As well as the Stadium, we have plenty of other fantastic backers for this year’s competition.

There’s headline sponsor BGL Group, partner sponsor Gentoo and category sponsors Stagecoach, Calsonic Kansei, Audi, and Northern.

The competition aims to reward those unsung heroes who do fantastic work in the community.

Over the last few months, we have received so many incredible entries from people in all walks of life and now our aim is to honour some truly deserving heroes.

This has been a wonderful year for competition entries and the judging panel had no easy task when it met to draw up a shortlist just a few days ago.

There were outstanding stories of achievement in every category and that’s down to the standard of people we have in our communities.

Now we are gearing up to the final part of the competition, which will be to unveil our Best of Wearside champions, and we will do that in a grand finale at the Stadium of Light on Thursday, March 28.

Make sure you follow our live coverage of the night. You can follow us on both Facebook: www.facebook.com/sunderlandechoonline and via our twitter: @sunderlandecho

Then after what is sure to be a fantastic night, we will bring you photographs, news and interviews in a supplement to be published in the Echo the following week.