CARE heroes in Stroud have been praised for their dedication during the pandemic, with votes flying in for our award.

Our readers have been recognising carers who have been an inspiration during the Covid crisis, putting them forward for our Gloucestershire Care Heroes award.

Over the coming weeks, we will profile carers in our titles to celebrate them, and ask our readers to vote for their favourite, with the overall winner revealed the week before Christmas.

Thanks to Gardiner Haskins in Cirencester, our Care Hero will win a 43” Mitchell & Brown TV, while Pound Farm Shop in Stroud has offered a hamper worth £50.

Angela Kavanagh, 55, from Stroud is among those to receive votes.

She was nominated by her daughter, Maria Smith.

While Doreen Hoskins, of Kingscourt in Stroud, was nominated by her neighbours.

Angela has been working in domiciliary care for over 28 years and is currently employed by Acorn to Oak, looking after many elderly residents in Stroud, Stonehouse, Nailsworth and the surrounding areas.

“My reason for voting for my mother, Angela, is she goes above and beyond in her role. So much so that she contributes Christmas gifts out of her own wage packet to the residents she looks after, to make sure everyone’s got something to open,” said Maria. “For service users she knows who live alone, she cooks and drops off Christmas dinners for them.”

Maria said that during the pandemic, mobile hairdressers haven’t been able to visit Angela’s clients, so to help them feel presentable she has given them haircuts herself.

“For many years her kindness has warmed the hearts of many and my own, as her daughter. I believe she deserves to be noticed for all her hard work,” said Maria.

“Back in 2011, when I was 20, I lost my former partner David Harrison to cancer and her caring knowledge helped me through such a hard time. It led me to also become a care giver myself.”

Maria, who sometimes works alongside her mother, said she has been moved to tears seeing how kind and caring her mum is with her clients.

“But she doesn’t think anything of it. She doesn’t realise how special what she does is,” said Maria. “It is kind-hearted people like my mother - who work hard all year, especially in these hard times, supporting and giving warmth and kindness to our local older generation - who need more recognition.”

Doreen Hoskins, who lives in Kingscourt in Stroud, was nominated for Care Hero by Nigel and Kathleen Tomkins for being an ‘exceptional neighbour’.

“Doreen is not a professional carer, however she has gone above and beyond in helping us,” said Nigel.

“I am 70 years old, suffer from asthma and was recently diagnosed with blood cancer and am therefore classed as ‘extremely vulnerable’. And I am the carer for my wife, who is partially disabled from a stroke.

“Doreen - who is older than me - has been preparing and delivering substantial meals to us, as well as doing the shopping every week.”

Nigel said Doreen, who was a professional cook before she retired, will be cooking Christmas dinner for the couple this year too.

“Recently I contracted an infection and I have lost about a stone,” said Nigel. “I do cook, but I can’t say I’m the greatest cook. And if I’ve lost a stone, my cooking is never going to put the weight back on. But I happened to say to Doreen ‘I’m going to need building up’, and she took it upon herself to prepare and bring hearty nutritious meals round to us.

“We give her money for the ingredients, but she does everything else.

“I am deeply grateful to her and believe she deserves some form of recognition for her efforts.”

Nigel said Doreen was also an ‘exceptional neighbour’ before the pandemic.

“She always looks after people’s animals when they go away. And before lockdown, she also prepared the meals for Rodborough Tabernacle’s monthly lunch club for older residents. Doreen is a gem.”

Our award is supported by Gloucestershire County Council and MPs Siobhan Baillie and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown.

You can vote for your Gloucestershire Care Hero 2020 by filling in the form in the newspaper, and also by emailing michael.purton@newsquest.co.uk.

Please put ‘Gloucestershire Care Heroes 2020’ as the subject of the email, and include the following information: The name of the carer, where they work, why you think they deserve to win the award, your name and your contact phone number so we can call you in order to gather details for the feature profiling the carer you’ve nominated.

The deadline for voting is 10am on Monday, December 21. The winner will be announced on December 23.