Banbury's Sunshine Centre receives Unsung Hero award

Staff at the Sunshine Centre are over the moon at being awarded, The Rainbow Unsung Hero award of Oxfordshire by Victoria Prentice.

The award acknowledges the centre's work and care for communities in Banbury during the COVID-19 crisis. The award was accepted on behalf of all the supporting organisations, councillors, volunteers and community members who helped The Sunshine Centre in the height of this pandemic.

The award doubled their excitement, as gold was found at the end of another rainbow for the Sunshine Centre, in the form of a National Lottery Grant of £57,000.

Jill Edge, manager of the Sunshine Centre, said: "The grant will go towards services which will help enable our most vulnerable families to overcome the impact of the virus on their emotional well being.

"At the height of lockdown our staff team worked hard to provide an accessible service to families and facilitate a food parcel and activity pack scheme.

"Many parents commented on the negative affect the pandemic was having on the mental health of their family, which often became apparent in their children’s behaviours. We are aiming to continue our support to help families return to some kind of normal.

Although our COVID food parcel scheme has now ceased we will be starting a new community pantry on September 21, with the help of Morrisons and Banbury Food for Charities.

Our National Lottery Grant is really good news, and will help our short term funding issues enabling us to support families through the crisis. We still continue to seek a longer term financial solution to keep our services available following the withdrawal of government funding in 2015.

If you are able to help retain our service you can discuss this with Jill. She can be contacted on 01295 276769 [email protected].