A initiative to celebrate the valiant heroes of the St Albans community is back for its second year.

Whether it’s someone who has lent a neighbourly hand, taken it upon themself to help clear out the streets of rubbish or raised thousands of pounds for charity, their story is worth being heard.

The Maltings Community Heroes campaign will run until September, and each month the shopping centre will be rewarding £100 to spend in their stores for one of these heroes. To enter simply email your story to communityhero@hertsad.co.uk including the name of the nominee, their contact details and your name and contact details.

Centre manager Phil Corrigan said: “The Maltings Community Hero Awards 2015 was such a great success that we didn’t even question running it again this year.

“We met so many wonderful people, young and old, all of which are dedicated to helping and supporting individuals and organisations within the local community. With the Maltings being a major stakeholder in St Albans we do all we can to help high-light outstanding work and commitment such as this, and assist in promoting the charities and community groups in St Albans as much as possible. The Community Hero Awards means we can do just that – every month!

“So it is with great pleasure to announce that not only are we running The Maltings Community Hero Awards again but we are also sponsoring the Herts Advertiser Community Awards and The Maltings Community Hero Category for the second year running.”

The Herts Advertiser Community Awards will launch officially in April, and celebrate the achievements of many of our local unsung heroes. There will be 11 categories to choose from, and you will be able to enter these online, more information to come in April.

The overall winners of last year’s Maltings Community Heroes category were the Crouch Hall Crew, a group of girls from Redbourn who held various fundraising activities including a sponsored run around the village common and an event to highlight the lack of clean drinking water available to children in Africa.