Community Pride award nomination for Street Angels (From York Press)

Community Pride award nomination for Street Angels

10:45am Friday 27th April 2012 in News By Kate Liptrot, kate.liptrot@thepress.co.uk

A GROUP of volunteers who help keep people safe on nights out in York have been nominated for a Community Pride award for their efforts.

Street Angels, a group of volunteers from churches in the area, take to the streets of York every Friday and Saturday evening to provide practical help and a friendly ear to those in vulnerable or difficult situations.

From 10pm to 2.30am, its volunteers often help the homeless or wait with very drunk people until they are sober enough to safely get a bus or taxi home.

Nominating Street Angels for best community project, Chris Cullwick said: “Street Angels help to make the city centre a safer place in the early hours. Over the last two years, more than 100 volunteers have been trained to work in teams of three or four. They help anyone who is in need or vulnerable and make York a more friendly, welcoming and safer place.”

Before taking on their roles, Street Angels are given conflict management training, as well as advice from the police, Arc Light and York Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (YACRO).

Jennifer Locke, co-ordinator of Street Angels, said: “It’s really great to be nominated. We have been going for two years and seeing the positive impact it is having on the night time economy is wonderful.

“The volunteers do such a good job and it’s a big commitment to give up a Friday or Saturday evening and it’s a real tribute to the work they have put in that we have been nominated.”

Among the letters of thanks they have had, one read: “I would just like to say thank you so much to the members of your group that looked after me on Saturday night in York, I am so grateful for it. I’m really sorry at the same time for being in such a state, I have never been like that before, and don’t intend on it happening ever again. You guys deserve medals”.

Another said: “I was just writing to personally thank the Street Angels for helping me last night and making me safe.

“I don’t know what I would have done without them. What you do is amazing.”

The Community Pride Awards, which will have a York 800 theme this year, are run in partnership with City of York Council and sponsored by Benenden Healthcare.

You can nominate anyone you think deserves recognition for their efforts to make York a better place via yorkpress.co.uk/pride/