Last year I was nominated for a BBC Radio Lancashire Making a Difference award, I was truly amazed when I received the phone call advising me of the nomination, I’ve been raising funds and awareness for CRY since 1998 after the death of my son Andrew in 1997 at the age of 21, it’s just what I do.
Radio Lancashire came to interview me during Heartfelts screening event at the Grasshoppers in Preston last May, it was great publicity for the cause as it was shown on the radio website, and hopefully reached a lot of people.
Myself my hubby and two daughters  were invited to Chorley Town Hall on the 9th September for the awards afternoon.  The nominees for the charity category were all amazing so I was totally shocked and humbled to win the award.
On the back of this BBC North-west asked if I would record something for them to follow up with for public interest. Although nervous it was too good an opportunity to pass on, so again they decided to come and film myself and Sheila Wiggins in action at Preston College Freshers fair, which we attend yearly as part of our awareness work.
The college was buzzing as they had all been informed that the TV camera would be there. Richard the director was lovely and did a great job putting it all together he included an interview with Sheila as well as  mine, a chat to the principal about how valuable the awareness was and also included a couple of the students and their thoughts on what they had learned from us. It was shown on the BBC lunchtime and evening so great awareness for CRY and for Heartfelt our group.
We have had lots of interest since then and have received donations towards our screening fund which is just great and it’s so important to us that word spreads, it’s a too late for our so sons but we hopefully can spare other families going through the same devastation.
Ann Coles