Claire Squires, the marathon runner who died running the race but raised nearly £1m in the process, has been honoured with a national fundraising award.

The family of Claire Squires collected the award on her behalf after she was named Most Popular Fundraiser at the JustGiving Awards – a title given to the person who receives the most individual donations to their JustGiving page in one year.

Nearly a year since Claire passed away, a number of her friends will run the marathon this year in her memory, raising funds for The Squires Effect – an organisation set up in Claire’s memory to help other charities.

Speaking from the awards last night, Claire’s sister Maxine Holmes said: "It's been really emotional and it's an honour to accept this award on Claire's behalf. She's achieved so much for the Samaritans and I want to thank everyone involved in helping us continue to fundraise in her memory."

Now in their fourth year, the JustGiving Awards were held last night at the Troxy, London in association with WorldPay.

Sponsoring the awards for the first time this year, WorldPay are a leading global provider of payment processing and JustGiving's preferred online payments provider.

As well as Claire’s achievement, last night’s awards celebrated many other outstanding individuals, teams and charities who together helped raise over £200 million through their JustGiving pages for good causes over the last year.

The JustGiving Awards covered 11 categories, recognising everything from feats of incredible endurance, to extreme creativity and commitment.

Eight-year-old Freddy Parkins was named Young Fundraiser of the Year after raising money from the Anglian Air Ambulance, who had rescued him and his father from a serious car accident last year.

He had raised these funds by writing and publishing a book that included advice for children who suffer similar trauma.

Vodafone named Claire Lomas as their Mobile Fundraiser of the Year after her sheer determination saw her secure over £220,000 for Spinal Research UK after walking the 26.2-mile marathon course in a specially designed bionic suit over a period of 17 days.

Actor Tom Hardy was crowned celebrity fundraiser of the year after trekking his way across Siberia to raise £40,000 for Cambridge based homelessness charity FLACK and Afghanistan based Nowzad Dogs were named Charity of the Year.

Nowzad rescue stray dogs and cats, pair them with servicemen on tour and then raise the funds to fly them home to their new owners. To date, Nowzad have reunited more than 400 soldiers from all over the world with their much-loved pets.

Other category winners included; Stuart Block (Endurance Fundraiser of the Year), Alice Halstead (Outstanding Commitment to Fundraising) and Juliana Matthews (Most Creative Fundraiser). Dryathlon received the Innovation Award for Best Use of Technology whilst Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners won Company of the Year.

Special recognition awards were also presented to seventy-five year old Barbara Walmsley for her outstanding commitment to fundraising and Bristol based Yogscast, who produce charity appeal videos via YouTube.

Anne-Marie Huby, managing director at JustGiving said: "It is great to be able to celebrate the amazing achievements of every single person here tonight and learn more about the people behind these incredible fundraising achievements.

"Hundreds of thousands of JustGiving pages are created each year, all with inspirational stories and goals, and we would just like to take the time to congratulate our winners, runners up and everybody who has used JustGiving to make a difference to charity over the past year.”

Shane Happach, chief commercial Officer at WorldPay, said: “Each and every one of the JustGiving Awards’ finalists has shown real determination, creativity and intelligence to raise an incredible sum for their chosen charities.

"The lengths that the finalists have gone to, and the clever way in which they’ve been able to encourage donations through online channels should be a real inspiration to people across the UK.”

For more details on all the winners, log on here

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