TWO Monmouthshire residents were among the winners of the inaugural Pride of Gwent awards last Friday.

Chepstow's Claire Day, who founded the Street Life Sarnies (SLS) with her family in 2014, said she was "humbled" after winning the Community Hero Award.

What began as a small family organisation with 10 volunteers now has over 3,000 members.

She was nominated for the Community Hero award by a number of people for the work she does supporting homeless people and organisations in the region.

The charity has two main hubs, in Chepstow and Bristol, and these supply food, clothing and resources to a range of organisations.

SLS fundraise to purchase resources specially sleeping bags, boxers and socks. All of this to help those in crisis, the homeless and vulnerably housed. Every penny goes on those we help.

In 2016 the charity purchased over 250 sleeping bags and more than 1,000 pairs of socks, over 1,000 pairs of boxers in addition to over 8,000 sandwich packs across the two SLS hubs.

The charity link businesses with centres in need so they can work together in areas including food wastage and education. These community links is vital to the work they undertake.

During the Christmas period the group collect shoeboxes packed with essentials for homeless people, and in the spring they issue an appeal Easter Eggs to hand out to the homeless.

As well as running SLS, Mrs Day works as a teaching assistant. She says that balancing everything can sometimes be a struggle. “At times it’s really overwhelming, especially at Christmas,” she added. “But we do it because we have an amazing team and people will put themselves out.”

When she found out she had won the Pride of Gwent Community Hero award she said she doesn’t do her work for the recognition and she will accept the award on behalf of the whole group.

She said: “SLS is down to a group of people who are kind, generous and caring. None of us heroes just a community in action to combat poverty, vulnerability and hunger.”

Elsewhere, an act of heroism led to Abergavenny police officer William Duggan being given our Pride of Gwent Lifesaver Award.

Originally from Wexford Town in Ireland, Mr Duggan has lived in Abergavenny more than 20 years and he works as a police officer for Gwent Police.

When he was told he had won the Pride of Gwent award he said: “I was surprised to be told I had received it, it’s a nice accolade.”

His lifesaving skills were called into action when he was visiting his home town.

He said: “I was at a hotel celebrating my elder brother Laurence’s birthday that when events unfolded. We saw a girl walking out by the shore and then she got deeper and deeper into the mud with an incoming tide.

“She was quite hysterical and shouting for help, but because there was a gentle breeze so you couldn’t hear her. We saw her waving but a lot of people didn’t notice.”

The 11-year old girl was visiting the hotel with her family and they were not aware that she was in trouble. The brothers got up and went to help the girl, but were careful not to panic her further.

“We soon realised that she couldn’t turn around and that she was stuck. If she had fallen on her face she could have been smothered in mud because it’s about six foot deep and there’s nothing to push down on to help you get up.

“We walked calmly down to the bank and picked up life buoy and unravelled it. She saw us and we told her to stay calm. It took us three attempts to get the ring round her.

“We gave her instructions on what to do so we could try pull her in to land on her back. When we got her in she was covered in muck from head to toe.”

The girl was shaken but unharmed and returned to her family and hosed down to remove the mud.

However, this wasn’t the first time that Mr Duggan has saved a life. In 2004 he saved the life of a man who got into difficulty in the River Usk.

He was given a Divisional superintendent commendation for his bravery.