Thank you to everyone who voted on our Yammer poll to decide the charity of the year 2023. We had a total of 328 votes!

The winning charity with a total of 112 votes was Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation Hull & East Riding Branch! This charity was established by and is very close to the heart of our colleague Angela Pye.

Angela’s son had always been an all‑rounder in sports and had previously completed trials for Hull City. One day in 2007, at age 15, he went to bed with mild backache and woke the next morning paralysed from the chest down, the cause subsequently confirmed as a viral infection. For Angela’s family, their whole world felt like it had been turned upside down. Undeterred by being told such terrible news, Angela never gave up hope and promised Steven they would do everything possible to help him to walk again.

She set about researching into possible cures for spinal injury. Meanwhile, the family sourced privately; physiotherapy, podiatry, acupuncture and reflexology and Steven worked extremely hard with daily exercises and is now able to walk short distances with walking sticks. After a lot of dead ends, they eventually found a glimmer of hope through a charity called Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation (NSIF) which was supporting promising research into spinal cord injury. The treatment, which involves using the patient’s own stem cells, has already seen one paralysed man regain significant movement and a second patient is due to undergo the same procedure, where even greater results are anticipated!

There is so much to be hopeful for, not just for Steven but for anyone currently suffering from a spinal cord injury. Lets help make a difference!