Tyne and Wear baby charity win national award at celeb-studded ceremony

A Tyne and Wear charity which supports families in need, have been recognised for their hard work and dedication to supporting the community at a national awards ceremony.

Love, Amelia Baby Bank who are based in Sunderland but support families across the region, were the proud winners of The Sun’s Who Cares Wins Award for Best Charity.

The charity was founded by Steph Capewell and her husband, in memory of her daughter Amelia, who was born in January 2018 but tragically passed away 12 minutes after her birth.

To help other children in the community, her parents donated twelve boxes of baby essentials to parents in need and signed them as a gift from Amelia, which is where the name of the charity came from.

Love, Amelia became a fully registered charity in February 2019, and has gone on to help many more children across the region, from babies to teenagers.

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Founder Steph explained: “It’s a means so families can get access to free basic essentials that a child would need. There is no cost to the service and it’s for families who are experiencing poverty or other hardships.

“We commonly refer to it as like a food bank, it’s a similar situation in terms of coming to the baby bank for essentials.”

Now, they have been recognised for their work in supporting the community, winning a national award, which was presented to founder Steph, by Ru Paul’s Drag Race judge Michelle Visage and presenter Leomi Anderson.

“The win is bittersweet. It’s hard to celebrate something when this service should not exist. What we are celebrating though is the community impact and the community coming together to meet a need.

“Unfortunately, we can’t solve child poverty but we can at least make it a bit easier for people. The win is the first national award we have ever won, which is incredible but it really is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the team, the volunteers, our trustees and the community who donate.

“We just want to show we care about these families, no child should ever have to go without. We’re here to listen and provide support.”

Steph also explained that it was great to chat to celebrities such as Harry Redknapp, Anthony Joshua and Sir Trevor McDonald and tell them about the cause, as well as Denise Welch who the charity are working with in her aims to lessen child poverty in the North East.