Social Enterprise Kent’s Ageless Thanet volunteers have been honoured with the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service; the highest recognition volunteers can receive.
The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service aims to recognise outstanding work by volunteer groups who benefit their local communities. It was created in 2002 to celebrate The Queen’s Golden Jubilee. Recipients are announced each year on 2nd June, the anniversary of The Queen’s Coronation. Representatives of Ageless Thanet will receive the award crystal and certificate from Lady Colgrain, Lord-Lieutenant of Kent later this summer. Furthermore, two volunteers from Ageless Thanet will attend a garden party at Buckingham Palace in May 2022 (subject to restrictions at the time), along with other recipients of this year’s award.
Ageless Thanet, led by Social Enterprise Kent, is part of Ageing Better, a programme set up by The National Lottery Community Fund. Ageing Better aims to develop creative ways for people aged over 50 to be actively involved in their local communities, helping to combat social isolation and loneliness. It is one of five major programmes set up by The National Lottery Community Fund to test and learn from new approaches to designing services which aim to make people’s lives healthier and happier.
Their volunteers continue to play an integral part in the project in helping to make Thanet a great place to grow older, whether that is through sharing their skills or passions with others, hosting social events, supporting office staff with admin, or even helping to shape the project by sitting on their governance panel. In addition to this, the volunteers have been going above and beyond to support the community during lockdown by delivering food and prescriptions, conducting telephone befriending and digital support calls, as well as organising online activities to keep everyone’s moral up. For this reason, Ageless Thanet volunteers that have provided this additional support during the pandemic will receive further recognition and be presented with a special badge.
Rebecca Smith, Deputy CEO of Social Enterprise Kent and Ageless Thanet Programme Manager said:
“Social Enterprise Kent is thrilled that our Ageless Thanet volunteers have received this recognition by the Queens Award for Voluntary Service. We have an amazing group of volunteers who have put in thousands of hours of hard work since the project started. Voluntary work often goes unrecognised, so we feel very honoured our volunteers have received the recognition they deserve.”
To find out more about Ageless Thanet, visit www.agelessthanet.org.uk.