The editor of the Daily Echo in Bournemouth has received a special award in recognition of the £6m the paper’s readers have raised in just seven years.
Neal Butterworth has been named a Paul Harris Fellow by the Rotary Club of Bournemouth.
The international honour is named after the Rotary founder and is normally only awarded to Rotary members for outstanding service.
The Daily Echo also received a Certificate of Appreciation from the Rotary Foundation.
Neal received the awards from Rotary Club of Bournemouth president Maurice Patterson at the club’s spring guest lunch.
He said: “It was a great honour for me to receive this award as I know how much it is treasured within Rotary International.
“But I accepted it on behalf of the thousands of readers who have raised the money with us over the past seven years.”
The £6m raised since 1999 has helped build a specialist breast care unit at Poole Hospital, buy scanners for Bournemouth Hospital, create a new centre for autistic children and has contributed thousands of pounds to many other individual and charity campaigns.
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