The final round of public voting for the National Lottery Awards 2010 begins this week.
Stepney Bank Stables, a BHS approved riding school in Byker, Newcastle is through to the semi finals of The National Lottery Awards 2010 and needs your votes to get through to the final round.
The riding centre is one of only 10 projects in the country and the sole entry in the North East to make it through to the semi finals in the Best Education Project Category.
Lottery players raise £25 million a week for projects and organisations across the UK and The National Lottery Awards are the annual search to find the UK’s favourite Lottery-funded projects. The Awards recognise the dedication of the people behind Lottery-funded projects who are making a difference to their communities. There are seven categories each reflecting an area of Lottery funding, including the Best Education Project which features Stepney Bank Stables, an inner city riding school.
The three finalists in the Best Education Project category are:
• Stepney Bank Stables, in Newcastle Upon Tyne, offers under-privileged and disabled children the chance to ride, look after and learn about horses, and develop their social and practical skills in a manner that will lead to enhanced opportunities and expectations.
• Chances for Life is a Lottery-funded project run by The Hinge Centre in Goole. It offers advice, information and support to young people under the age of 26 who are homeless, threatened with homelessness or who are vulnerable because of drug misuse, self-harming issues and social isolation.
• HMS Cavalier, in Chatham, was the Royal Navy’s last operational World War II destroyer and until 1999, was gently rotting in a dry dock on Tyneside. The ship was acquired for preservation and dedicated to the 143 British Destroyers and 11,000 sailors lost at sea during the Second World War. Now restored, HMS Cavalier is a major heritage attraction and the focus of a range of educational programmes.
All the projects in the running have already received Lottery funding and the awards celebrate how they have put that money to good use. The three finalists in the Best Education Project category will now go head-to-head in a public vote.
Public voting for the finals starts at 9am on 26 July and ends at midday on 13 August. The public can vote for their favourite project in each category by going online to www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/awards or on the dedicated telephone numbers noted below in the release.
• To register your vote for Stepney Bank Stables call 0844 686 5540
• To register your vote for Chances for Life call 0844 686 4497
• To register your vote for HMS Cavalier call 0844 686 1038