ALMOST 20 community organisations in the area have received a share of £10,000 from an Irvine healthcare group.

The organisations and charities attended GSK Irvine's annual community awards after the group decided earlier in the year to try and improve communities throughout Ayrshire by helping people to do more, feel better and live longer.

They asked for groups to apply and were delighted with the response, with many applications coming from organisations applying for the first time.

Commenting on the awards, recently appointed Site Director for GSK Irvine, Mike O’Sullivan said: “As a healthcare company and significant employer in the area, we use these awards to recognise organisations committed to improving our local community and the lives of people who live in Ayrshire.

"This year we doubled the size of our award fund, which together with the great response resulted in us being able to support 19 charities with a bronze, silver or gold award, which ranged in value from £250 to £1,000.

“New to the site and the area, the award ceremony was a very humbling experience. It gave me the opportunity to hear and speak to people who are out there, doing great work in the local community and making a real difference.”  

Four Gold winners were each awarded £1000, which included Irvine & Troon Cancer Care, the ‘make a meal of it’ project run by the Church of the Nazarene and the Royal British Legion Scotland.

Some of the Silver winners were, RNIB Scotland and CLIC Sargent, who received £750 towards their organisations.

A total of 11 Bronze awards were awarded and these included Ayrshire Cancer Support, Woodlands Senior Citizens Club, Irvine Teen Challenge, Children 1st, Coastwatch Scotland Irvine, Drybridge Hall Management Association, Scottish Heard Injuries Music Support Group (SHIMS), Maritime Volunteer Service and Broomlands & Bourtreehill Age Concern.

Mike O'Sullivan is delighted to be able to help all of these groups and is urging for more to come forward to take part in a different scheme.

He said: “As a site we are committed to supporting our local community from a monetary perspective via these annual awards, but also through our Orange Day programme. We offer each of our employees the chance to go out and work in the community for a day.

"Orange Days are an area that I am very keen to expand over the coming years. In fact, we are actively looking for community organisations, schools or charities to contact our Communications Manager, Anne Cousins at anne.b.cousins@gsk.com with opportunities where we could potentially help.”