This week sees voting go live in the Cash for Charities competition in association with the Packet - and the finalists can be revealed.

Back in August we asked readers to nominate their favourite charities, after our parent company’s charitable arm, The Gannett Foundation, announced it was providing £128,000 in cash to support local charities across the country.

The Packet region has a £16,000 share to give away, and now one charity from each newspaper has been put forward to win.

In Cornwall the charity looking for your support is the Cornwall Independent Poverty Forum, a charity based in Truro but supporting people across the Duchy.

The reader who nominated it said the charity had a project providing washing facilities for people who cannot afford to wash uniform, as well as offering financial help for school uniforms and college wear, plus general help with housing issues, electric, gas and water charges.

Read more about the work of the charity in next week’s Packet.

Other charities in the running for a share of the cash are: Cancer Support Salisbury, Andover Food Bank, Friends of Vigo Primary school in Andover, Jane Scarth House Romsey Cancer Support Centre, The Winchester Beacon, The Sophie Barringer Trust in Southampton, Ability Dogs 4 Young People on the Isle of Wight, Weymouth Food Bank and Routes to Roots in Poole.

Now we are putting the power to allocate the cash back into the hands of our readers! You are now invited to collect tokens from our newspapers, which can then be sent to collection points across our region or posted. See this week's newspaper, out today (Wednesday)  for more details.

Each token collected will then be used to allocate cash to the nominated charity – so if your favourite charity collects 50% of all to tokens collected, it will receive 50% of the £16,000!

Last year saw Cornwall Accessible Activities Programme (CAAP) win £10,827.17 after obtaining 54% of the votes for the 2021 pot, and now Cornwall needs to come together again to help get as much money as possible for this year's charity. 

Newsquest terms and conditions will apply where relevant to the grants process; please visit http://www.newsquest.co.uk/prize-competition-rules. Personal data will be used by Newsquest and its agents solely for the administration of the grants process and will not be shared with any third party; our general privacy notice is at: http://www.newsquest.co.uk/privacy-policy. This campaign will be published in multiple Newsquest publications across this Newsquest region. The 10 charities chosen by the local editorial panel will be voted for by our readers. The value of the grant awarded to each of the 10 charities will be calculated pro rata according to their share of the vote. Only original voting coupons will be accepted, no photocopies. The cash grants will be sent by BACS transfer. Grants are conditional on completion of the relevant project and a successful nominee charity may be required to evidence its use of the grant. The top 10 charities selected for the vote will be contacted to provide additional information for entry into the readers’ vote; should this information not be provided within the timescale provided then the editorial panel will select an alternative charity. The charity must be registered with the Charities Commission and have not received a grant from the Gannett Foundation in the last two years.