Public votes ice bucket campaigner their Everyday Hero
Melanie May | 18 December 2015 | News
This year’s ParcelHero Everyday Hero is Paula Maguire, the ice bucket campaigner who helped raise £7m for charity.
In November, international parcel broker ParcelHero asked the public to nominate people for its Everyday Heroes competition, which recognises people who make a positive impact on their community. The public nominated people for five hero awards: business, volunteer, people’s, community and sport, with Maguire (pictured centre with husband Robert at the IoF National Awards 2015) voted overall winner for bringing the Ice Bucket Challenge to the UK.
Maguire introduced the idea in August 2015 to help raise funds for Motor Neurone Disease after her uncle died from the illness. She created a JustGiving page to publicise it, with her husband Robert and herself the first to take up the challenge and post a video of it. As a result of Maguire’s work in publicising the challenge, it raised £7m for the Motor Neurone Disease Association in just one month.
David Jinks, head of public relations at ParcelHero, said:
“We were overwhelmed with the quality of the unsung heroes and heroines nominated. There were some truly moving stories of hard work, dedication and generosity. But Paula Maguire is undoubtedly a worthy winner.”
Paula and Robert Maguire also won best volunteer fundraiser at the IoF National Awards 2015.
The full list of Everyday Heroes winners can be found on the ParcelHero site.
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.