Recognising a young superhero who makes an amazing difference

Platform and our partners have recently celebrated the unsung heroes who live in their communities and make a real difference to others, at our annual Community Heroes Awards.

Our vision is to build a better future by investing in affordable homes, services and communities which lead us to launch our Community Heroes recognition Awards in 2022, to highlight the incredible work that our customers and partners do in their local communities.

The Young Person Award is presented to a young person (under 18) who is already making a difference to others, whether through volunteering, caring or helping others in any other way. Due to the high calibre of nominations, this important award had two winners and was shared between Jack who lives in Worcester and Lola.

Marion Duffy, Chief Operations Officer at Platform Housing Group said, “I was honoured to have been a judge on Platform’s Community Heroes Awards panel, along with our Board member Lou Zonato and Customer Engagement Panel member Shaolan Menzies. It was such a pleasure to read through all the amazing entries and extremely difficult to choose the winners.

“In what continues to be a challenging time for so many of us, it’s lovely to say thank you to our customers and organisations who go above and beyond to serve their local community.”

Superhero Jack is 8 years old and lives with Autism. He is always ready to use his superpowers to help anyone and is a fantastic representative for his community.

Jack and his mum, Mel have written and published a book with Jack as the main character, sharing how Jack’s Autism gives him superpowers!  

On hearing that he had won, Jack said, “Oh my gosh!  I am so happy to win!  I’m not going to stop being a superhero though, I want to be the voice of my community and other superheroes.”

At only 6 years of age, Lola took part in a 5km walk for bone cancer research, managing to raise £250 for the charity. She even did some litter picking on her way to help the wildlife.

Platform’s Community Heroes Awards were made possible by the generous sponsorship of the main event sponsors, Travis Perkins and the Young Person Award sponsored by Michael Page Group.

James Fahy, Relationships Manager at Michael Page Group said, “Sponsoring this event sits really well with our partnership approach; we have worked with Platform for several years now and feel very invested in the community work that is being done.  Sponsoring this award is a great way to get involved at a real grass roots level.”

You can find out more about Superhero Jack and watch him receive his award here.