Community Champions Award

On Saturday 17^th June,  at an awards dinner held at Birmingham's Botanical Gardens, Sarah Clay was awarded her certificate as a Rotary Community Champion. Sarah was one of only seven awards across Great Britain and Ireland and she was sponsored by the Rotary Club of Kingston upon Thames for her outstanding community work during and after the Covid lockdown.

Sarah Clay loves to see people believing in themselves, growing in confidence, and taking steps towards fulfilling their potential which is why she founded the Voices of Hope Charity in 2019. As the lockdown came Sarah identified the needs of her local community and brought together volunteers and organisations who hadn't worked together in a focused effort to address these needs.

Voices of Hope started the BRITE ( Building Resilience in Today's Environment ) Box project to address the increasing problem of food hunger, providing over 30,000 meals and food parcels to those in need across Richmond, Kingston, and Southwark.

Sarah also started the Kingston Women's Hub -a partnership of organisations that brings holistic support to women recovering from abuse and long-term physical and mental health issues with 135 women in weekly attendance.

Sarah's outstanding project management and determination to put service above self has led to her receiving the Mayor of Kingston's Community Awards in 2020 and subsequently a British Empire Medal in the 2022 Honours List