The Plunkett Foundation’s Rural Community Business Awards celebrate the best of the UK’s community-owned businesses and the inspiring achievements and selfless commitments of the kind-hearted individuals behind them.
That’s why we’re proud to support their very first Young Person Award.
“We’ve seen first-hand how young people have played an integral part in their community, especially over the last 18 months and the impact of the pandemic. It’s our mission to create thriving communities and empower lives, which we’re doing through our £15m five-year community investment. This award will see us celebrate the unsung heroes who have been involved with their local-community owned businesses,” says Cita Jagot, Communities & Involvement Manager at Abri.
The awards are supported by Dame Prue Leith DBE, restaurateur, chef, television presenter, journalist, businesswoman, cookery writer and novelist, who will host the awards ceremony on 25 November.
Commenting on the awards Dame Prue Leith DBE said: “Plunkett’s awards celebrate the hard work of everyday people who come together and create extraordinary businesses that make their communities a better place to live. During the pandemic they gave selflessly of themselves in order to establish thriving rural businesses that can provide a future for communities that desperately want the heart of their villages to survive.”
The three finalists for the Young Person Award are:
Georgia Ball, 17, who has been one of the most active volunteers at Bledington Community Shop. As well as spending her time volunteering, Georgia has also been studying for her A-Levels and competing in show-jumping, while also using the experience she gained when volunteering to count towards her Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award. In fact, she was so taken by her time volunteering in the shop that she has carried on helping out long after completing her Duke of Edinburgh Award.
Katherine Geikie-Cobb, 16, and volunteers at Semley Village Stores near Shaftesbury. Katherine’s journey with Semley Village Stores began four years ago, when as a very diffident, quietly spoken 13-year-old. She began volunteering with the community business, on Saturday afternoons, as part of her Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award.
Toby Carlton is 15, and has shown an incredible amount of kindness and hard work to support his local community. He works tirelessly, using all his spare time to volunteer for both the JSRNSD community hub and the community pub in Jaywick Sands, Essex. He is loved by locals because of his steadfast attitude and sheer willingness to help anyone and solve problems that come up.
You can read more about their nominations on the Plunkett Foundation website.
Harriet English, Head of Engagement at the Plunkett Foundation, added: “Plunkett Foundation is delighted to be working in partnership with Abri. Both organisations have a shared passion for creating impactful and meaningful places through empowering communities to address the issues that matter to them most. Creating places is not just about providing housing, but about creating communities where people can access a wide range of services and feel connected to each other. Plunkett endorses the community business model as the perfect platform to bring people together and to put communities at the heart of their core services and social spaces. Community businesses are rooted in community control and accountable to the community. As well as trading to bring wider benefits for the whole community – not just members. As well as providing core services, community businesses tackle loneliness and isolation, create training and employment opportunities and help make a difference in terms of creating fair access to good quality food for all and the addressing the climate crisis.
“Plunkett is working alongside Abri as part of the new Pease Pottage development that is creating a community hub with shop, meeting space and café for the whole community to benefit from. We are also exploring a potential collaboration to bring a community retail, social and food growing space within an existing Abri site. As a celebration of our new partnership, Plunkett is delighted that Abri are the sponsor of our new Young Person’s Award as part of our 2021 Rural Community Business Awards. We are excited by the close synergies and shared values of our organisations and what this will mean for community groups across the south east.”
