Wakefield District Sight Aid shortlisted in the For the People Awards

The charity, which supports thousands of blind and partially-sighted people, has made the shortlist at the annual For The People’s Awards by commercial insurance brokers Marsh Commercial.

WDSA has been nominated for the passionate category which celebrates an individual or organisation that has demonstrated passion, enthusiasm and a commitment to help improve their local community.

Hayley Grocock, chief executive of WDSA, said: “We are delighted to share that our entry to the Marsh Commercial For the People Awards has been shortlisted in the passionate category.“Our entry is now part of a public vote which runs until Sunday, November 20, so please click on the link below and vote for us.

"It only takes a second and every vote is one step closer to £5,000 vital funding to help us run our community outreach programme. Thank you so much, and please share!”

Every week, WDSA holds a social group for people to get together as well as regular events and activity sessions.

Hayley added: "We've started running regular fish and chip lunches and combining this with fun activities like bingo, using specially adapted large print bingo cards.

"All our events are oversubscribed and people love the opportunity to come together where they can feel supported by sighted staff and volunteers and connect with people in a similar situation to them for mutual support.“It is truly transformative to see people able to enjoy life again and new friendship groups forming.

"Our Christmas lunch is already fully booked more than two months before Christmas!

“We are entirely voluntarily funded and Covid-19 has hit us hard as our usual fundraising channels were closed off.

"We continued to work throughout the pandemic to support people as best as we could and therefore couldn't benefit from any of the government support on offer.

"We are continuing to recover as an organisation from Covid-19, and this money would help us run more fun events for people living with sight loss in 2023.”

To vote, visit https://www.marshcommercial.co.uk/campaigns/for-the-people-awards-2022/passionate/hayley-grocock or visit WDSA’s website for more infomtation on the services it provides https://www.wdsa.org.uk/.