Your favourite local paper is giving local charities the chance to take a share of an amazing £128,000 giveaway.

Our parent company’s charitable arm, The Gannett Foundation, is providing the whopping amount of cash to support good causes across the country - and we are delighted to have a £16k share to give away in the North West/North Wales region of our business. 

And we asked YOU to decide where this money should be spent. You nominated in your thousands and our editorial team chose a shortlist of ten charities from these nominations that will share in the £16k.

The 10 charities for the North West/North Wales region are:

  • Dr Kershaw's Hospice - an independent hospice serving the people of Oldham and surrounding districts and a registered charity. Since 1989, its mission has been to add quality to the lives of those with a life-limiting illness.
  • The Bury Project (Christians against Poverty) - A group of Bury churches offering free help to local people after partnering with a national debt counselling charity. 
  • Bolton Mountain Rescue Team - The voluntary team is on call 24/7, 365 days a year, whatever the weather, and has been since 1968.
  • East Lancashire Hospice - For more than 35 years, the hospice has continuously provided a special way of caring for people suffering from life-limiting illnesses throughout Blackburn, Darwen, Hyndburn and the Ribble Valley.
  • Credu Connecting Carers - CREDU in the Welshpool area wants to set up a hub which could be supported by other organisations and for people of the community to have a space they can come to - young and old.
  • Aaron Dixon Memorial Fund/Cardiac Risk in the Young - Deborah Dixon, from Northwich, organises free heart screening days every year in memory of her son Aaron, who died suddenly due to an undetected heart defect at the age of 23. 
  • Neuromuscular Centre - A specialist-adapted physiotherapy and rehab centre in Winsford with support groups for people with neuromuscular conditions.
  • Byrne Avenue Baths - To restore Byrne Avenue Baths in Wirral as a sport and community centre run by the charity for the community. To provide a range of sports, healthy activities and community events for local people.
  • Willowbrook Hospice - A specialist palliative care unit based in Prescot providing care and support for patients, their families and the community.
  • William's Gift - Warrington charity supporting children and their families in hospital by providing care packages particularly but not limited to bowel and total parenteral nutrition patients.

Now we are putting the power to allocate the cash back into the hands of our readers – you are now invited to collect tokens from our newspapers which can then be sent to collection points across our region or posted. Each token collected will then be used to allocate cash to the nominated charity – so if your favourite charity collects 50 per cent of all to tokens collected, it will receive 50 per cent of the £16,000!

Information about collection points will be printed in due course!

Newsquest terms and conditions will apply where relevant to the grants process; please visit http://www.newsquest.co.uk/prize-competition-rules. Personal data will be used by Newsquest and its agents solely for the administration of the grants process and will not be shared with any third party; our general privacy notice is at:   http://www.newsquest.co.uk/privacy-policy.  This campaign will be published in multiple Newsquest publications across this Newsquest region.  The 10 charities chosen by the local editorial panel will be voted for by our readers. The value of the grant awarded to each of the 10 charities will be calculated pro rata according to their share of the vote. Only original voting coupons will be accepted, no photocopies.  The cash grants will be sent by BACS transfer. Grants are conditional on the completion of the relevant project and a successful nominee charity may be required to evidence of its use of the grant. The top 10 charities selected for the vote will be contacted to provide additional information for entry into the readers’ vote; should this information not be provided within the timescale provided then the editorial panel will select an alternative charity. The charity must be registered with the Charities Commission and have not received a grant from the Gannett Foundation in the last two years.