A HORSELL woman who set up a group in the village to make personal protective equipment for NHS staff and care workers during the pandemic has been given the Eminent Citizen award.

Claire Cummings, who ran the Horsell Scrubbers team that made more than 11,000 items, was presented with the award by Councillor Liam Lyons, alongside four recipients of the Young People’s Civic Award Scheme.

The Scrubbers distributed scrubs trousers, tops, hats, bags and facemasks to the Royal Surrey County Hospital, Heathcot Medical Practice and Goldsworth Medical Practice, and other frontline workers.

Claire, who is deaf and is an activist for other deaf people, also oversaw the making of smile masks for education staff working with deaf children and those with speech, language and communication needs.

Sara McKenna won the Outstanding Contribution to the Community category in the Young People's Civic Award Scheme.

The Year 7 student at St John the Baptist School raised more than £6,000  for the school's PTA and Breast Cancer Now by organising a charity raffle.

Sara, who is in SJB’s business club after starting at the school in September last year, obtained donations from local businesses, printed posters and sold tickets.

Rohan Handa and Anoushka Kumar were joint winners of the Outstanding Achievement category.

Rohan, a talented young cricketer from Pyrford who has represented Hampshire County Cricket since he was eight, created a YouTube channel called Cricket Nuggets during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

It was aimed at helping his school friends and team-mates at the Rajasthan Royals UK Academy, based at Reed’s School in Cobham, to keep active, but spread around the world with hundreds of subscribers and several thousand views.

Anoushka is an award-winning artist, aged 10. She has won the Royal Society of Biology’s specimen art competition, Toyota’s Dream Car art contest, a junior designer birthday card competition and has received an award for illustrating a children’s book.

The Triumph Over Adversity category was won by Lily Hider, a Winston Churchill School pupil who helps to care for her younger brother who has leukaemia.

The awards are sponsored by The Ambassadors Theatre Group and the winners each received a trophy, a certificate, cinema tickets and a gift voucher.

Cllr Lyons said the award winners “have consistently gone above and beyond what is expected of them in their school, work or private lives, especially during the unprecedented times over the past couple of years. They are a true inspiration to us all and Woking should be very proud.

“There are many individuals and voluntary groups in the borough that do fantastic work and make significant contributions to the lives of others.”