AFTER more than 1,000 of you contacted us with nominations for your favourite charities, the time has now come to vote for the shortlist.

Our parent company’s charitable arm, The Gannett Foundation, is providing £125,000 in cash to support local charities across the country and we are delighted to have a £25,000 share to give away in our area.

This translates into eight charities across the northern region, and two charities nominated by readers of The Northern Echo.

It was an incredibly difficult decision choosing just two from the many amazing charities – but our panel looked at the number of nominations each charity received and decided on two which gained the most.

Those charities are: If U Care Share and Little Treasures.

If U Care Share provides a range of services fundamental to its three main aims of prevention, intervention and supporting those bereaved by suicide.

The team reaches some of the the most vulnerable people in society to support them at a time of need.

The charity also offers workshops to primary, secondary and educational establishments to equip young people, and offers training and workshops based around themes of mental health and suicide prevention to professionals.

In the many nominations we received, lots of you said this charity had helped you through some incredibly difficult times, and that the outreach work it does in schools really does make a difference.

Little Treasures is a volunteer-run charity who support autistic adults and children across the North East.

It aims to relieve the needs of autistic adults, children, young people and their parents, carers and siblings, by providing facilities for play and recreation in the interests of social welfare in a safe and secure environment, and by providing support and practical advice to parents and carers.

So many of you nominated this charity and said how amazing they are at making lives better for people with autism and their families.

Now, during November, you are 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 £25,000.

Other charities in our wider region are: Bradford Cinderella Club; Jacqui's Million - Leeds Hospital Charity; Cumbria Wildlife Trust; Jigsaw, Cumbria’s Children’s Hospice; Hearing dogs for the deaf; and York Rescue Boat.

Tokens can be posted back to us via: Readers Choice Cash Charity, Northern Echo, PO Box 14, Priestgate, Darlington, County Durham, DL1 1NF.

Collection points can also be located at:

Ferryhill Town Hall

Chapel Terrace

Ferryhill

DL17 8JL

Coop Ferryhill

9-10 Market Place

Ferryhill

DL17 8JN

Bishop Middleton PO

19 Bank Top

Bishop Middleham

DL17 9AW

Mainsforth News

13 Dennison Terrace

Ferryhill

DL17 0AL

If U Care Share Office

27 The Close East

South Pelaw

DH2 2EY

ReFuse Café

143c, Front St,

Chester-le-Street

DH3 3AU

Tesco Chester Le Street

N Burns,

Chester-le-Street

DH3 3TF

One Stop

Hilda Terrace,

South Pelaw,

Chester-le-Street

DH2 2JE

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 eight charities chosen by the local editorial panel will be voted for by our readers. The value of the grant awarded to each of the 8 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 completion of the relevant project and a successful nominee charity may be required to evidence its use of the grant.

The top 8 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.

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Have you got a story for us? Contact our newsdesk on newsdesk@nne.co.uk or contact 01325 505054