Lord Mayor’s COVID19 Livery Awards

On a hot afternoon on 19 July the Lord Mayor presented his Lord Mayor’s COVID19 Livery Awards at a ceremony at Mansion House.

The awards recognised the contribution made by individual Liverymen and Freemen, as well as members of staff of the livery companies, who have deployed their skills, their time, their knowledge and their resources to help others during the COVID19 pandemic, often in a voluntary capacity. 26 winners, each nominated by their own Company, received an individual award, for a wide range of activities, all of which have made an invaluable difference within both the Livery and the wider community. Winners were recognised for projects which included:

• distributing food parcels and baking bread for vulnerable communities across London;
• contributing, making, and providing PPE, and indeed in one instance inventing ventilators, for hospitals in the UK and struggling countries overseas;
• providing IT equipment for schoolchildren studying from home while schools were closed;
• raising funds, making grants and supporting countless charities struggling to help those most in need;
• while also sustaining their Companies, fellow liverymen and colleagues during the lockdown.

In addition to the individual winners, there were also a number of collective awards for organisations where it would be invidious to identify an individual recipient. As a means of acknowledging the doctors, surgeons, nurses, healthcare workers and everyone who has been on the NHS frontline during the pandemic, the Lord Mayor awarded collective Special Commendations to the entire Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, the Worshipful Company of Barbers and the Company of Nurses, with his grateful thanks for everything that their members have done over the last year and a half. A further collective award was made to the NHS Livery Kitchen Initiative, for its work delivering daily meals to frontline hospital staff and communities experiencing food poverty in East London, and for the way in which it brought so many Livery Companies together with a common purpose.

Congratulations to all the winners and to the Companies which supported them.