Replace Joe Solo's prize

Hello. My name is Tony Booth. I learnt this morning that Joe Solo (twitter (@joesolomusic), musician and community activist, had been awarded a prize for his community support by HopeNotHate following hundreds of nominations and a public vote. Then I found the prize had been withdrawn amid insinuations that there were social posts from Joe that supported antisemitism. This is entirely untrue. I am a proud Jew and the allegations involve a totally unwarranted slur. They promote hate and hopelessness. I think we should restore the funds to Joe.

This is how the award process was described:

"As part of our HOPE heroes campaign, people all over the country have been nominating the people and projects near them that help build resilience against hate and make their communities great places to live.

Over the last 6 weeks, we’ve received hundreds of nominations. It’s been incredibly inspiring to read about all the projects, groups and activists that are making such a huge difference in our communities."

Joe had already promised to share his £5,000 prize among a number of good causes and showed utter generosity to the losing finalists:

"Now there were three prizes and six nominees, all of whom were deserving of the award so in keeping with the spirit of WSO I have asked HopeNotHate to take £1500 of the prize money and split it three ways so each of the nominees who narrowly missed out on the vote gets £500 and that way everyone gets a little help to keep their incredible campaigns going.

That leaves £3500 which will be distributed like this:

£1000 to Pauline Town at WSO Central in Ashton-Under-Lyne to keep the food parcels flowing and the warm clothes on hand for winter.

£1000 to Rachel Emec at Mesopotamia in Nottingham to make sure she has the resources to carry on without having to sell her car which she was forced to do in order to keep the doors open earlier this year.

£1000 to Hull Unity Shop in order to keep the solidarity parcels flowing and the community programme expanding.

The remaining £500 will be added to the WSO (We Shall Overcome) t-shirt money and distributed around the country in time for the rush around Christmas and January.

That leaves me happily broke again."

I am starting off the fund with £50 and hope we can reach £5,000 so that Joe can fulfill his promises

Tony Booth, November 18th 2021