A regional daily has handed out £50,000 to charities, schools and voluntary organisations after running a special campaign.

Newcastle title the Evening Chronicle launched its Wish campaign three months ago, inviting community groups to collect tokens in the paper for a share of the cash.

Distributions of cash were then made according to the number collected by each group, with more than 230 organisations taking part and 3.4m tokens submitted.

And Evening Chronicle editor Paul Robertson presented the cheques himself to the top 10 groups.

He said: “As a newspaper at the heart of the community and with the community very much at its heart, the Chronicle is proud to be able to help so many different organisations.

“In these difficult economic times, it is more important than ever to support charities, community groups and not-for-profit organisations who make such a big difference in their local area.”

Coming out on top was the charity Give Tilly a Hand with more than 86,000 tokens collected, winning a cheque for £1,259.

Tilly had to have both her hands amputated after contracting meningitis when she was 15 months old and her parents are now campaigning to buy her the best prosthetic hands available.