THE Hereford Times One in Eight appeal has been crowned Campaign of the Year.

The successful campaign which raised £60,000 for the breast cancer support centre, The Hereford Haven, won the award at The Regional Press Awards today.

We had an overwhelming response to our One in Eight campaign, which was named because one in eight women in Herefordshire can now expect to be affected by breast cancer at some point in their lives.

It started in July 2015 with an aim to raise £30,000 to fund an extra nurse for a year at The Haven in St Owen Street.

The centre supports women diagnosed with breast cancer with counselling, nutrition advice and a number of complementary therapies including acupuncture and massage.

We had such an amazing response from our readers that by October we had reached our target and decided to double it to £60,000 to fund a nurse for two years.

Amazingly we reached this by the end of the year- we raised £61,139.57 for The Haven in 26 weeks.

The new nurse started in January.

It not only raised money but also awareness for the vital service- a woman was diagnosed with breast cancer as a result of reading about our campaign as it gave her the nudge to go and see a GP.

Hereford Times editor Peter John said: “I’m delighted the Hereford Times has won the Campaign of the Year award for our One in Eight Campaign.

“This was a really important fundraising initiative for a Herefordshire charity which gives vital support to cancer sufferers in their hour of need.

“We ended up doubling our original target and that’s credit to our readers and the people of Herefordshire for their fantastic support and all those dedicated people who organised fundraising events throughout the year. I’d also like to pay tribute to our reporter Rebecca Cain who worked really hard to keep our coverage of the appeal running, covering all aspects of the service and talking to those who have been helped by it.”

To read more about the campaign click here

To read more about the Regional Press Awards click here

To find out more about Hereford Haven click here