The Heart of the Community Awards will this time enable Nisa partners to nominate a local group, charity or good cause to receive up to £1,000 of funding from Making a Difference Locally, to help communities celebrate the historic occasion with events such as afternoon teas, garden parties and street parties.

Nominations will be accepted from Nisa partners via a dedicated website until 18^th March and 70 winners, to mark the Queen’s 70-year reign, will be selected to receive funding for their community celebrations. Donations could be used towards entertainment, equipment, food and drinks, venue hire or decorations, and each winning good causes will also receive a decorative MADL POS kit with bunting.

Kate Carroll, Nisa’s Head of Charity, said: “We received a fantastic response to our two previous rounds of funding, so we’re delighted to be able to bring back the Heart of the Community Awards for a third round of donations.

“This special Jubilee edition of the Awards will give the opportunity for 70 of our fantastic Nisa retailers to celebrate this exciting and joyous event with the communities they serve, bringing people together to mark the Queen’s historic reign.”

Almost 90 good causes nationwide have benefitted from donations totalling more than £310,000 in previous rounds of the Heart of the Community Awards initiative, cementing it as Making a Difference Locally’s biggest funding giveaway to date.

The post Making a Difference Locally to fund celebrations for Queen’s Jubilee first appeared on Neighbourhood Retailer.

As SPAR and EUROSPAR NI’s unveil their sweet pouch bargains for their 12 Deals of Christmas initiative this week, umbrella group Henderson has revealed shoppers in County Down have the most appetite for the deal.

Last year, shoppers in Kilkeel and Newry picked up the most pouches, shifting over 2,740 pouches of sweets, with over 131,178 purchased across the country in just one week, resulting in a 13.7% rise in sales from 2019.

Sara Murphy, Brand Marketing Manager at Henderson Group commented: “EUROSPAR Mulkern’s in Newry has been one of the top outlets for the past two years with their shoppers having a particularly sweet tooth, and in 2020 their fellow Co Down stores kept their towns and communities sweet with more than 12,765 pouches purchased in just one week.

The Quality Street, Celebrations, Swizzles, Haribo and Maoam pouches are part of this week’s dual deal, which also includes the Cookstown Cocktail Sausage pack plus 100% extra free – that’s almost 1 kg of sausages for just £1.69.

“Our 12 Deals of Christmas campaign is a huge footfall and sales driver for retailers across the province, and true to its name, kicks off three months before the big day with big named brands dropping their prices for one week only – this year, we have invested in seven weeks of enhanced double deals,” Sara said.

“We’ve had a lot of fun with the campaign this year and have even worked with Olivia Nash to launch the campaign and our £12,000 giveaway, where shoppers have the chance to win £500 vouchers each week, plus a £6,500 cash prize right before Christmas. We know talking about Christmas before Halloween isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, so we wanted to make sure we celebrate Halloween with some fitting deals and incentives for our shoppers this year.”

The post Newry’s Halloween shoppers have the sweetest tooth first appeared on Neighbourhood Retailer.