P&G winners' stories: Sophie Popham

In November P&G, the Proud Sponsor of Mums, launched the Champion Mums' Foundation: A campaign offering hardworking mums the chance to be awarded a bursary from a whopping £150,000 pot. The only stipulation was that the award had to be used towards making a positive difference to the winners' lives as mums, to their family or to the community. Here Sophie Popham, mum-of-two from

Kirriemuir, Scotland, tells us what winning the prize meant to her...

A sense of community is important when you have a young family - and for Sophie Popham, this is what living in Kirriemuir in Scotland is all about. So when the opportunity arose to help revamp her neighbourhood park, Sophie seized it with both hands.

‘Early last year there was a meeting to discuss the state of Davidson Park. It's a run down area, with just one slide and a set of four swings, so there's virtually nothing for my son Jack, 6, and daughter Robyn, 2, to do.

‘At the meeting, a group of parents and the council's Community Planning Team formed an action group to raise £176,000 to turn the park into a space for everyone to enjoy,' explains Sophie.

It was Sophie's mother-in-law, Susan Smith, who read about the P&G Champion Mums' Foundation in Now. The Foundation had been set up to give mums the chance to receive an award from a £150,000 bursary fund, designed to help them make small, meaningful changes to their lives, their family's lives or their community.

‘I applied and then forgot all about it until I heard I'd been shortlisted. I hadn't even told the rest of the group I'd applied, so it was a great feeling to tell them we'd won!' says Sophie.

‘The bursary will buy new play equipment for kids from tots to teens, including a sport goal system that can be adapted for football and basketball. It will make a huge difference in contributing towards a revamp of the park and will really help to make it a great place for the whole community.' 

Behind the prize

P&G has been helping to make mums' lives easier for more than 170 years with products such as Febreze and Nice 'n Easy. As the Proud Sponsor of Mums, last year it launched the P&G Champion Mums' Foundation to reward the work that mums do by ffering them the chance to win a bursary share of £150,000 award scheme. Visit thankyoumum.pg.com to find out more about the awards and P&G products.