Your favourite local paper is giving local charities the chance to take a share of a whopping £125,000 cash giveaway.

The Watford Observer parent company’s charitable arm, The Gannett Foundation, is providing £125,000 in cash to support local charities across the country and we are delighted to have a £20,000 share to give away in our area.

And we asked YOU to decide where this money should be spent. You nominated in your thousands and our editorial team chose a shortlist of eight charities from these nominations that will share in the £20,000.

These are:

  • The National Animal Welfare Trust in Tylers Way, Watford
  • The Carli Lansley Foundation in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex
  • The Colchester Korban Project
  • The Colchester Phoenix Amateur Swimming Club
  • Southend-based homelessness charity HARP
  • Brain injury charity Headway Essex
  • The Rockinghorse children's charity
  • Sussex MS Centre

Now we are putting the power to allocate the cash back into the hands of our readers – during November, you are invited to collect tokens from our newspapers which can then be sent to collection points across our region or posted. Each token collected will then be used to allocate cash to the nominated charity – so if your favourite charity collects 50 per cent of all to tokens collected, it will receive 50 per cent of the £20,000!

Tokens can be found on page 18 of this week's paper and voting boxes can be found in supermarkets, newsagents and other prominent locations around Watford. Alternatively, send it to Watford Observer Readers' Choice Cash For Charity Nominations, Unit 1 Brunel Court, Brunel Way, Severalls Industrian Estate, Colchester CO4 9XP. The closing date is Sunday, November 28.