Say Hello to Suffolk, Wave Goodbye to Deserve a Break

For our latest and last campaign in the “Who Deserves a Break?” series, and after much public voting, we’re happy to announce Andrea Badman will soon be enjoying a 7-night stay at the stylishly modern River End Cottage in Suffolk. We couldn’t let the other finalists go away empty handed either. As with our Yorkshire and Snowdonia campaigns, we’re giving each of them a mini-break to a holiday cottage of their choosing too!

Andrea’s story started a number of years ago, when through her local Church, she started collecting food in order to send out food parcels for people in need in Bedford. Later, she and a friend felt the needs of their local community weren’t being sufficiently met and started looking into setting up their own foodbank. With the help of others, they set up and launched Bedford Foodbank in October 2011. Andrea also continued working as an Intensive Care Nurse until 2013 when she decided to commit more of her time to the foodbank. Today she really does get involved in all aspects of the foodbank: from training volunteers, to overseeing data collection, helping in the warehouse, at the distribution centres, talking to clients and giving out food. Since launching, the foodbank has grown and grown. They’ve set up six distribution centres operating over five days. This means they’re now able to help more people than ever! Amazing Andrea would like to thank the whole team at the Bedford Foodbank as she says that “in all honesty our volunteers deserve this nomination as much as me”.

When we called and told her the good news about winning the holiday Andrea said “I read all the other nominations and thought I wouldn’t win, they are all so deserving!”

A big thank you goes out to you - the public - for all your kind nominations and generous voting throughout this campaign. We couldn’t have done this without your support. 

Waving Goodbye

Way back in February, we launched our “Who Deserves a Break?” campaign. We wanted to find and reward those people in our lives and communities who go above and beyond the call of duty - the unsung heroes we know we couldn’t do without. We invited people from all over the country to nominate a friend, a neighbour, a colleague - a special someone - who have done something surprising, kind or generous for someone else without being asked or asking for anything in return.

In our previous two campaigns, nominations came in for people like Neal Staley from the Isle of Wight who campaigns tirelessly for better road safety and changes to the law, and Jean Evans from Carmarthen who gives her time to charity. Neal won the public’s heart and is off to picturesque Yorkshire for a 7-night break while Jean is off to stunning Snowdonia for a week’s much deserved relaxation. While this is the last campaign in the series, we hope you all agree that Neal, Jean, Andrea and the other finalists do indeed deserve a well-earned break. 

It doesn’t end there though! Original Cottages will be launching new campaigns and competitions throughout the year so please do take a peek at our Competitions page and see what’s going on. You never know who’ll be going where next!