Trophy Tour: Friends of the Community

As the red carpet was rolled out virtually at The Key Awards 2021 this year, we’ve kicked off our very own Key Awards Trophy Tour visiting some of the night’s award winners. It’s been an absolute delight to get out there and see young people and delivery partners again and we can’t wait to continue the journey.

This week, we caught up with Key Group, Friends of the Community, from Percy Hedley College who picked up the judging panel’s Special Recognition Award on the night.

After being moved by the stark issue of homelessness in and around Newcastle, Friends of the Community came up with the idea of supporting those experiencing homelessness by creating and distributing care packages for their stage 1 and stage 3 project, building upon it each time. 

For stage 1, this group worked hard to make their budget stretch by creating a shopping list, purchasing essential food and gloves before wrapping and hand delivering them to the vulnerable. After their success, they worked hard to make an even bigger impact with their Stage 3 Key Project choosing to support a similar theme but this time on a bigger scale. After researching the needs of the homeless community and finding items that were greatly needed such as sleeping bags, flasks and food vouchers that can be used more than once. To push the project even further and support more people, the group came up with the idea of a reverse advent calendar which encouraged others to donate rather than take something from the calendar.

The judging panel was impressed by the tenacity that the young people demonstrated throughout. This group thought outside of the box in order to make a bigger impact and it paid off for others in the community.