A north-east charity has been honoured with two prestigious awards from the Queen for its services to the community.
VSA volunteering charity bagged two Queen’s Awards for Voluntary Service – one of the highest possible achievements for a charity in the UK.
At a special ceremony at VSA’s headquarters at the Castlegate yesterday, Lord Provost George Adam presented the honours to Dorothy Leith and Elma Gauld in recognition of their years of hard work at the charity’s contact centre and Mercat bookshop.
Mrs Leith is the longest serving volunteer of VSA’s contact centre, which provides an informal meeting place for children and their estranged parents following divorce.
She said: “I’ve volunteered at the contact centre for the last 28 years.
“It’s a safe haven for the children, and we try to create a very happy atmosphere for them.
“It’s usually fathers that we deal with. We take them into the centre and make sure they’re relaxed and comfortable, because some of them won’t have seen their children for quite some time, so it’s very, very frightening for them.”
Mrs Leith said she was thrilled to collect the honour on behalf of the team.
“It’s a massive award for us, it’s just fantastic to win,” she said.
“I got to visit Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s garden party, where we got to see the Queen herself, Prince Phillip, and Nicola Sturgeon, it was such an amazing atmosphere.”
VSA’s Mercat bookshop scored its award thanks to its 40-strong team of regular volunteers, who work with adults with mental health issues to run the store.
Volunteer Simon Dyson said: “Receiving the award is very important to everybody in the workshop. It’s nice to be recognised by Her Majesty the Queen, and we’re thrilled.
“As volunteers, we don’t seek to get something out of this, we give up our free time to do it because we want to, ecause we want to give something back to the community.”