Firstly, we found out that we had been nominated for the Radio Aire Superhero Award for Inspirational Family.
Just the fact that we had been nominated was amazing, to think that people had taken their time to go and vote for us.
This means such a lot to us and makes us realise that we are reaching people.
The awards took place at The Bewleys Hotel, Leeds on Thursday 7th May.
Myself and Carrie attended the evening, both feeling extremely nervous and excited.
We were sat at a table with the sponsors of our category, Ison Harrison. We were made to feel very welcome by the staff of Ison Harrison and they quickly put us at our ease.
They asked us about what we had done and our story. They were then telling us about what they did and told us that if we ever need their help or advice to contact them. (They may regret saying that to us, lol). This meant a lot to us and I am quite sure that I will be contacting them in the not to distant future for their expert advice.
The evening was hosted by Radio Aire's breakfast host Kam Kelly. I had met him once before when I took Charlie Bear into the studio to meet the Radio team.
The awards then began.
The first award was for the Cash for Kids Bravery Award. It was won by a little 5 year old local girl who has been battling Neuroblastoma. It was very emotional and as she went up to get her award everyone rose to their feet.
Me and Carrie were getting more and more nervous waiting for our turn.
Then we saw our category come up on the screen, as they began talking it became obvious that we had won the award.
As we went up to get our award we clutched each others hand feeling so nervous.
We were given a beautiful glass award and a huge box of flowers. As we were having our photo taken we could see on the screen Bethan Davies (Radio Aire News)talking about us and what we have been doing. Bethan has given us such brilliant support over the last 2 years.
It felt surreal to think that all these people were applauding for us. Carrie later described it as a very mixed pride.
It was fantastic to think that through our tireless work over the last 2 years that we had made a difference and that people were aware of what we had and continue to do. But on the other hand it felt that we would rather not have been there, we would rather be at home playing with Charlie.
Carrie summed it up brilliantly, she said that Charlie was obviously sent to us for a reason, he knew that we would make a difference and wouldn't give up.
Thank you Charlie for giving us that strength.
I felt that the evening was really good for us as it spread our name and cause out to even more people.
Charlie's story is reaching more and more people, changing the face of bereavement support forever.
Hopefully this will be the first of many more awards that Charlie will win.
We will continue the fight and will continue to campaign for better bereavement support for every family going through the loss of their baby.
No comments:
Post a Comment