OUR chosen charity for the Gannett Awards cash is Malvern Special Families.

This organisation helps children and their families coping with special needs, providing days out and activities all over Worcestershire.

The Covid pandemic has hit Special Families, with the lockdown meaning they could not run their usual events.

Chief executive Gareth Jones said the money from the Gannett Awards would help them get back on their feet after a difficult two years.

He said: "(Winning) would be massive because Covid hit us particularly hard.

"I remember in March 2020, we got the call that we were going into lockdown just before the official announcement.

"We were told to close and had to cancel all our activities and events like the sponsored walks, which are so important for our fundraising.

"Eventually we got back up and running in the summer, but having cancelled all the things that bring in money, we were hit hard."

We asked our readers which of our local causes should be selected and you suggested lots of great charities.

An editorial panel has now selected Malvern Special Families, which helps disabled children and their relatives all over Worcestershire.

Our parent company’s charitable arm, The Gannett Foundation, is providing the cash to support local charities across the country and there is £20,000 up for grabs in our area.

During November you are invited to collect tokens from our newspapers which can then be sent to collection points across our region or posted.

There are seven charities competing for a share of the £20,000 in our area - the more tokens collected for the respective charity, the bigger the share of cash awarded.

Each token collected will then be used to allocate cash to the nominated charity – so if your favourite charity collects 50% of all to tokens collected, it will receive 50% of the £20,000.

Newsquest is sharing the £125,000 cash pool across its seven regions.

Malvern Special Families is based mainly in Malvern, but runs activities and services across all areas of Worcestershire.

It is linked with Worcester's Fort Royal Community Primary School and Regency High School, and helps prepare children for their later lives.