Young Macmillan Champion Award winner 2020

Awards
Published: 02 February 2022
A young woman smiling
The Young Macmillan Champion Award recognises young volunteers. The 2020 winner of the award was Lucy Creamer, who volunteered alongside her university studies.

'lucy regularly covers several volunteer shifts weekly'

Lucy Creamer

Lucy is a second-year student at Sussex University and has volunteered at the Macmillan Horizon Centre’s café for 18 months, often running it on her own. She regularly covers several volunteer shifts across the week when no other volunteers are available and helps new volunteers to settle in, many of whom are 50 years her senior. Lucy chats to visitors to make them feel welcome and at home and has been praised by them for being “extremely helpful and caring."

She has persuaded the Sussex University Women’s Rugby Club to fundraise for the Macmillan Horizon Centre and has held a number of fundraising activities herself. Her efforts have not only raised funds, but also increased her peers’ understanding and awareness of Macmillan and of cancer as well.

The experience of having Lucy as a volunteer inspired the Horizon Centre to set up a formal partnership with Sussex University and since then, three more students have become volunteers at the café. The Horizon Centre staff and her fellow volunteers are all amazed at how much Lucy gives and the calm and balance she has been able to maintain, at her age, with so much going on in her life.

Everyone that meets Lucy thinks she is amazing and really deserves this award.

'everyone that meets lucy thinks she is amazing'

The Young Macmillan Champion Award

This award recognises an individual or group that:

  • is, or whose members are, below the age of 25 at the time of nomination
  • demonstrates leadership ability
  • demonstrates evidence of activity above and beyond the standard expectation for their age
  • contributes to Macmillan through caring for people, speaking, significant press coverage or social media activity, entrepreneurial initiatives, fundraising, or inspiring others using their own cancer experience.

'demonstrates leadership'