Top award beckons for Jackie

Jackie, the Community Champion from the Tresco store in Ballymoney, is no stranger to winning awards as she took the coveted award home last year and she is hoping to repeat that achievement again.

“I am absolutely delighted to have been nominated again for this award,” said Jackie. “I have no idea who nominated me, all I know is that I am the only person from Northern Ireland in the final five and I am up against people from much bigger stores.”

Jackie puts her amazing success as a fundraiser down to the people of the town.

“I wouldn’t be in this position if it wasn’t for the generosity of the people from Ballymoney. No matter what we organise they always support us and they are always so generous.

“We have a book table at the back of the store and the number of people who donate books and also leave donations for our charities is amazing.

Even at Christmas time we had a memory tree and I left tags for people and they left their donations and we raised quite a bit from that.”

Fundraising is never an easy task and especially when times are tough for many families, yet Jackie’s enthusiasm never wains.

“I absolutely love it and I really enjoy organising the different events.

“I tend to try and keep them small which means if I can’t get help for a particular event then I can run it by myself.

“Sometimes it can be quite hard coming up with new and novel ideas. I would come home from work and spend ages on the computer looking for ideas for different types of fundraisers which will work for us.”

With the awards ceremony only a couple of weeks away Jackie is looking forward to her trip to London.

“My husband Uel doesn’t like flying so my sister Amanda Coyles is coming with me.

“I’m really looking forward to going to the event and getting the chance to get dressed up. Hopefully I will bring the award back to Ballymoney again this year, however, if I don’t it is still an honour to have been nominated again and to make the final five.”