As nominations come to a close, an award scheme set up to praise good deeds in Maidstone is on the look out for submissions for its community category.

The Compassionate Community Awards recognise and celebrate the work of people from across the borough of Maidstone to highlight the positive work that individuals, groups and organisations have done to support others.

It is a collaboration between Heart of Kent Hospice and Maidstone Borough Council (MBC) and is backed by the Kent Messenger.

The community category is looking for examples of a parish or large group that has come together to provide a service or project to tackle loneliness and social isolation or increase community involvement and cohesion for the benefit of all.

Rachel Street, interim chief executive at the Heart of Kent Hospice, said: “There’s lots of ways of defining a community but what we’re looking for is where it is not necessarily an individual that has done something, but where a collective group has come together and organised something for their community to support their neighbours.”

Alison Broom, chief executive at MBC added: "This is about bigger scale community groups.

"With the common purpose of supporting people through the pandemic perhaps beginning to diminish a little, we want to know what those community groups are turning their attention to now, and what have they learned."

When it came to giving the accolade last year, the judging panel faced a tough decision, with several villages and residents’ associations being nominated.

So two awards were made: Yalding Community Volunteers and the Virus Volunteers, who covered Coxheath, East Farleigh and other villages, took the trophies.

Yalding’s helpers were praised for quickly setting up teams to help with shopping for the vulnerable, sorting prescription drop-offs, phoning isolated people and manning a food bank.

Similarly in Coxheath, the virus volunteers formed to check on the safety and welfare of people during the pandemic.

Nominees praised the work of Philippa Webb and Sandra Hobbs in particular for delivering thousands of care packages and for liaising with doctors surgeries and running prescriptions to those who could not get out.

The virus volunteers created 1,800 leaflets which were delivered around the villages, so residents and teams at shops and GP surgeries knew about its work.

The awards are part of the work being carried out to support the ambition of the council and the hospice for the borough to become ‘Compassionate Maidstone’.

The designation is for communities that publicly support, celebrate and care for one another during life’s most testing moments and experiences, especially those pertaining to life-threatening and life-limiting illness, chronic disability, frail ageing and dementia, grief and bereavement, and long-term care.

Other categories are for compassion shown in a business or workplace; in a care or residential home; in a school or by a teacher; by a volunteer or a neighbour; or a young person under 18.

Entries are now open and close at 5pm tomorrow.

To nominate a business, in no more than 250 words in writing, video or voice recording, send in some examples of how it has demonstrated compassion.

The nominations will be shortlisted by judges in September. The winners will be announced on October 21.

To find out more, click here.

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