Samantha Siddall cried when she heard about MBE for volunteering with Edlington Community Organisation

Samantha Siddall, who has been working for her home village of Edlington since she was a teenager, received the gong in the Queen’s Birthday Honours last summer and was formally honoured last Tuesday by the Lord Lieutenant of South Yorkshire, Dame Hilary Chapman.

But the 33-year-old revealed she had been so taken aback by the handwritten announcement letter from the Cabinet Office she doubted it was for real.

“There had been a lot of people locally getting letters asking for their bank details and saying they needed to do this and that,” she said.

“As it was handwritten and not formally stamped, I asked my local councillor to look into it and thankfully they confirmed it was genuine.

“I cried when I found it. It was a total shock but of course it’s a huge honour.”

Samantha began volunteering with Edlington Community Organisation nearly 20 years ago as her parents Norman and Cath were trustees and eventually took over the running of the community hub.

“I started doing it for work experience as I wanted to be a lawyer and wanted to try some office work but there was no getting rid of me,” she said.

“ECO is here to enhance Edlington and Warmsworth through local regeneration projects and to improve people’s lives.”

ECO, based at the Yorkshire Main Community Centre, offers advice services, help with fuel poverty and a range of food outreach programmes, including a foodbank and a community market, all of which draw heavily on the goodwill of volunteers.

Samantha said: “It has dominated my life and I’m there more than I am at home but I am trying to get better at that and I’m now going in at more like 8.30am rather than 6am.

“That wasn’t easy in the past year as we had a roof leak and a break-in!

“I am Edlington born and bred and the village has had a lot of negative press but something like ECO can help remove that by doing something positive.”

Samantha was full of praise for Dame Hilary, who stayed on after the official presentation to chat to volunteers, adding: “She was amazing and it was really humbling.”

The community centre manager said she hoped her honour would help raise ECO’s profile.

“Small charity’s don’t often get recognised as marketing tends to take a back seat,” she added. “This is recognition that our village is doing good work and that volunteering can go a long way.

“Everyone who is on our payroll is a former volunteer, which speaks volumes.”