The first of a new series of £3,000 awards to donate to good causes in Leicestershire has today been won by a music teacher. Helen Collins formed a choir of schoolboys and led them on a journey to the stage of the Royal Albert Hall and into the living rooms of the nation in the TV series The Choir.
Helen is the head of music at Lancaster School for boys in Leicester, and the recipient of the inaugural Leicestershire First Award for her inspirational use of music throughout her career to date both in the UK and abroad. Leicestershire First was officially launched today [June 6] at County Hall.
She has chosen two causes to share her prize: the oncology unit at the Leicester Royal Infirmary and a campaign to fund a music therapist at a children’s hospice in Loughborough.
Helen, 29, who lives in Kibworth, said she wanted to help Ward 27 at the LRI with £1,500 because a member of her choir has received treatment there. And she is using the other £1,500 to back The Towersey Foundation’s aim of funding a full-time music therapist to work with the terminally ill children at Rainbows Hospice, (see the attached press release LFirst Helen’s Charities).
Leicestershire First is a new charitable trust, set up and funded by Leicestershire residents Maurice and Vivien Thompson, to reward and promote the values of leadership, excellence and citizenship in the county. Over the next 12 months the trust will give a further eight awards of £3,000 each. As with Helen’s prize, the money must be donated to Leicestershire charities, (see the attached LFirst Aims and Ambitions). Anyone can visit www.leicestershirefirst.org.uk to make a nomination.
Maurice Thompson said Helen was chosen to receive the inaugural Leicestershire First award because of the leadership she has shown and the excellence achieved at the Lancaster School. He said: “Helen personifies the kind of citizen we are seeking to recognise and reward. She has made such a positive difference to so many lives, and been seen doing so by a huge audience. She has helped portray her school and Leicestershire in a very good light.”
Mr Thompson, who will next year become High Sheriff of Leicestershire, added: “Helen’s choice of where to invest her prize money leads the way for our future winners in exemplifying how these prizes can be put to excellent use for the benefit of more of our citizens.”
Before joining the Lancaster School Helen had used music to help children with a range of illnesses, severe behavioural problems and learning difficulties in the West Midlands. She also spent six months in El Salvador, attempting to help children as young as two years old who risk their health and safety searching rubbish dumps for scrap metal to sell. In El Salvador she also worked with children pressured to join the violent gangs which operated in the capital city’s street markets.
Helen said: “When I heard I had won a Leicestershire First award I was excited, proud and humbled. It is great the money goes back into Leicestershire.”
Helen’s head teacher at the Lancaster School, Paul Craven said: “The award is well deserved. Helen isn’t prepared to accept second best. She was determined our choir would be a choir that could produce an excellent sound.”
Leicestershire First, and its nine annual awards, were officially launched today [June 6] at Leicestershire’s County Hall by Maurice Thompson and the broadcaster Martyn Lewis, a former chairman of the Beacon Fellowship, a charity promoting philanthropy on which Leicestershire First is partly based.
After the launch the Lancaster School choir sang for an invited audience which included MPs and civic and community leaders. Mr Thompson called on the citizens of Leicestershire to nominate people they know who do extraordinary things to help others. He said: “Anyone can nominate anyone else for an award. Regardless of age, where they live, what they do, anyone – it's very open, very transparent, we want as many nominations as possible. We are not looking for saints, just people doing extraordinarily good things for their neighbours, their friends, and their community and for others in Leicestershire.”
And Helen Collins said: “It is great that people have the chance to nominate others for Leicestershire First’s next awards. I know lots of people I will nominate. I’m sure everybody knows somebody who deserves the recognition and the chance to put £3,000 into a good Leicestershire cause.”
For details of how to nominate, call Leicestershire First on 0116 249 5330 or visit the website.