Claudia Tanner was highly commended for her personal achievements in this year’s Community Champion Awards. Read her story in her words below:
My name’s Claudia and I’ve been the real life editor at The i Paper for five years.
For around two years, a man called Francis was rough sleeping in the grounds of my local church. He had mental health struggles and was diagnosed with PTSD after finding his brother who had killed himself. His brother was a veteran and had struggled with PTSD.
I befriended him and brought him food, clothes, a tent and mattress. I looked into getting him a caravan but the police said he could not legally have a caravan on the church grounds.
Eventually, after three years being homeless, Francis was given a flat and I appealed to the community to help him get him back on his feet.
It was fantastic to see everyone pull together: All kinds of items he needed were donated e.g. a sofa, bed, white goods, crockery etc. A man with a van collected and dropped the stuff off for free.
Francis still has his struggles with alcohol and has been into rehab. But he is doing a lot better and occasionally manages to work.
Completely of his own initiation, he recently slept out in his tent for a week and raised £500 for The Charles Thompson Mission. He wanted to give back to them because they have supported him during his lowest points. Francis is now planning to walk some dogs in kennels at a rescue.
I’m not one for nominating myself for awards! But I knew that Francis would be so pleased for £5,000 to go to a homeless charity and he asked for it to go to Charles Thompson. They provide food, clothing and support to homeless people.