Daybreak Flood Hers made the UK s first Points of Light at Downing Street

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Daybreak Flood Heroes made the UK's first Points of Light at Downing Street

Daybreaks Flood Heroes were yesterday invited to Downing Street to be recognised by the Prime Ministers new initiative as "Points of Light".

The "Points of Light" scheme celebrates individual volunteers who make a difference in their communities, and is the UK version of the US Presidents "Points of Light" Scheme.

The five Daybreak Flood Heroes were yesterday honoured as the first UK recipients in the "Point of Light" Awards.

Daybreak's Flood Heroes campaign in February set out to recognise the important roles fulfilled by volunteers in local communities during the floods, by asking the public to nominate their Flood Heroes' - members of the community who have gone that extra mile in helping with the flood relief, supporting those affected in their local area.

Viewers were asked to nominate people in their area and Daybreak then shared some of the most inspiring stories on air, to recognise these individuals and their extraordinary efforts within their communities, and help raise awareness of how volunteering can make a big difference.

From the nominations, the five Flood Heroes that were chosen and featured on Daybreak were Storm Wallace, Seamus Kearns, Mark Whelan, Clare Aparicio and Zafar Ahmad. More information on the Flood Heroes can be found here: www.itv.com/daybreak/hot-topics/flood-heroes-the-grand-finale

Speaking yesterday at 10 Downing Street, some of the Flood Heroes spoke about their excitement at meeting the Prime Minister and receiving their "Point of Light" Awards.

Storm Wallace said: "Its amazing to find out about the new awards... its going to inspire a lot of people definitely. Being in the Cabinet Room that was quite scary, quite surreal."

Seamus Kearns added: "The experience of coming to Number 10, meeting the Prime Minister is that fine balance between [being] nervous and really excited. Sitting in the chair that Winston Churchill once sat in, that was the highlight I think."

Clare Aparicio said: "[It was] truly exhilarating, such an honour, really thrilled."

And speaking to Lorraine Kelly and Aled Jones on the Daybreak sofa this morning, the Flood Heroes spoke about George Bush Senior who tweeted about them this morning. Surprised, Storm Wallace said was "really bizarre!"

Flood Hero Mark Whelan spoke about being able to take his team along to Number 10: "I think that was one of the highlights for me yesterday, being able to bring some of the volunteers who have done so much in Boston to help everybody out and we are still helping everybody out four months later, to be able to share it with them." While another Flood Hero, Clare Aparicio, joked about checking out the food in Number 10 yesterday: "We did dissect the canap s and were having a little look and checking them out... they were wonderful!" Zafar Ahmad said, "I was quite nervous and scared to start off with but it was good man!"

Some of the Flood Heroes finished by explaining how theyll use the £5000 donation from the Virgin Unite Charity. Storm Wallace said: "We have got some quite exciting ideas... were thinking of doing something thats quite exciting and scary for people, raising sponsorship so the money grows, then put it back into the community." With Mark Whelan adding that his community are using the money to provide goods and furniture for people still struggling with the aftermath of the floods.

Notes to Editors

Daybreak's Flood Heroes is an example of an editorial campaign that reflects and reinforces an important part of ITV's Corporate Social Responsibility agenda to be at the heart of local communities by using the power of our reach, and our programming presence, to highlight causes, and to help inspire, engage and empower viewers to make a difference.

We do this on a national scale, through campaigns such as Text Santa which has to date raised over 15 million for charitable causes. In addition to fund raising for the chosen charities, one of our primary aims with the Text Santa appeal is to use the power of our reach to inspire, engage and empower viewers to make a difference locally. Text Santa is all about helping someone near you', not just through donations, but also by connecting our audiences with our chosen charities on a national and local level. One example of this is The Big Volunteer' which is part of Text Santa.

On a local level, we use our reach as the UK's most watched commercial broadcaster, to highlight causes and engage and inspire our viewers to make a difference in local communities. In 2013, over 18 hours of airtime across our was dedicated to highlighting these causes across our communities. More information can be found here http://itvresponsibility.com/our-reach/local/

The People's Millions for example is one of ITV's long standing campaigns, run in partnership with the Big Lottery Fund. Each year, individual awards of up to £50,000 of National Lottery funding are available for local community projects that will help improve the lives of people from that area. To date 599 community based projects have benefited from over £31 million pounds.

Anything from youth and environmental projects to schemes that improve employment prospects or help people in need can apply for a chance of winning a grant.

Shortlisted projects are then featured on all of our individual regional news areas across the UK, where viewers have the chance to vote for the community project they want to see win up to £50,000 of Big Lottery funding. Applications are now open, and information can be found here www.itv.com/peoplesmillions

LINK:	http://www.itv.com/presscentre/press-releases/daybreak-flood-heroes-ma...
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