It has been a long and challenging year for many of us.
But among the setbacks, the struggles and the ongoing cost of living crisis, there have been glimmers of hope and inspiration.
While many of us did what we could to get by, a number of people went above and beyond to help others and fight for positive change.
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From the mum of a Manchester Arena bombing victim, to a grandmother who flew out to Eastern Europe to help refugees fleeing Ukraine, they have all gone the extra mile.
There's the high school students who helped a man they found collapsed in the street, and the plumber helping struggling families pay for food and gas - all just some of the people from in and around Greater Manchester who went above and beyond in 2022.
1. Figen Murray
The mother of Manchester Arena bombing victim Martyn Hett, Figen Murray has successfully campaigned for greater security at venues since the atrocity.
Martyn, 29, from Stockport, was one of 22 people killed in the terror attack after an Ariana Grande concert.
Following her son's death, mum-of-five Figen championed the campaign for 'Martyn's Law' legislation in memory of the much-loved PR manager, lobbying the Government to make public spaces and venues safer through the law.
This month, Figen revealed she had received a personal phone call from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to reveal that his government would table draft legislation for 'Martyn's Law' in the spring. The legislation will require public venues with a capacity of more than 100 people to introduce training and measures to combat terrorism or face sanctions.
Had Martyn's Law been in place on the night of the bombing, Figen believes that 'precious lives would have been saved'.
A devastating official report published last month laid bare a catalogue of key failings by the emergency services on the night of the Manchester Arena attack.
Salman Abedi, 22, detonated a device in a rucksack as crowds left the Arena. Sixty three people were also seriously injured, with 111 taken to hospital. Hashem Abedi, 24, the bomber's brother, was jailed for life for the 22 murders by assisting the bomb plot.
A report examining the role of the emergency services that night revealed how one of the 22 who died in the attack, John Atkinson, a 28-year-old carer from Radcliffe, could have survived.
Figen's tireless work also saw her receive an OBE at Buckingham Palace in June.
2. Alison Goodwin
Alison Goodwin was out having drinks one Friday night when she witnessed a Stagecoach bus plough into a gym in Bolton.
The nurse immediately jumped into action by running to the aid of those onboard the vehicle. She spent time tending to cuts, performing first aid and ensuring no one was trapped while waiting for emergency services to arrive at the scene in School Street, Westhoughton, on the evening of June 10.
The mum-of-three was among several people who rushed to help and was later hailed a hero online.
Recalling what happened, Alison said: "Myself and my friend ran down. I don’t remember a lot of that really, it just sort of happened. There were lots of people running about screaming, it was panic stations.
“There was lots of debris on the floor and the driver’s cab was inside the gym. There was a woman who had sustained a serious head injury where she hit the bars on her head. I went upstairs to make sure there was no one knocked out or hiding under the seats.
“It was weird actually because when you’re in that situation you just do things. When I turned around, there was a building in the bus and I realised this wasn’t safe. I’ve had major trauma training; I was on shift when the Manchester Arena bombing happened. You never want to be, but when you find yourself in a situation like that, you just do what you have to do.”
Alison continued: “There was a lot of blood; there was a lot of chaos. It could have been so much worse than it was."
3. Tony Farrar and Steve Cunningham
Tony Farrar and Steve Cunningham both grew up on the same road in Adswood, one of the biggest council estates in Stockport. Yet, until two and a half years ago, they didn't know each other.
The pair, who had both lost friends and relatives following mental health battles, met a funeral. At the wake, Steve told Tony he had failed in a bid to secure a thousand pounds worth of funding for a community fun day on the Bridgehall estate, next door to Adswood, where Steve has lived for nearly 30 years.
The pair agreed something needed to be done to make life for people in the area better and they decided to take matters into their own hands. And so they started an organisation that the pair hope can be a blueprint for how people across the country can improve their communities.
"We wanted to give the community something to do, somewhere to go, someone to talk to," Tony told the M.E.N previously.
Steve, a well-known community figure, was previously coach at the local grassroots football team, Adswood United, who he played for as a boy and where he oversaw the reintroduction of their junior teams.
Meanwhile, Tony was no stranger to getting things done - having previously spent over two decades assisting UK government departments in designing and implementing policy in his day job.
The pair's joint mantra is that physical activity is a ‘natural human right that everyone should have access to.' In the summer of 2019 they formed a partnership with the school in the middle of the estate and set up the not-for-profit organisation Active Community Experiences, better known by its acronym ACE, to offer affordable activities for local kids.
For just £10 a month, people in the area were able to take part in a range of 40 to 50 classes in a number of sports and other activities.
ACE has grown to the stage where it now has 350 monthly paying members on the Bridgehall estate alone. They also employ around a dozen people from the estate who joined as trainees and apprentices, as well as having a big volunteer base.
As well as turning political heads across the borough and beyond, they have won numerous awards for their work and now provide a number of official programmes such as holiday activities and a food programme for kids on free school meals.
4. Florence Coke
Florence's Caribbean takeaway in Stockport is a firm favourite of celebrities including England footballers and Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown.
But, during this year's cost of living crisis, the beloved owner of Mama Flo's became the rock of the local community - providing free meals to scores of hungry schoolchildren during the summer holidays.
Queues were reported all the way down the street and fans of the takeaway worried Florence would be negatively impacted by bearing the brunt of the cost at a time when businesses across the region were struggling.
Unphased, she told the M.E.N: "It's hard but I have to help them. I know people are struggling. I have seen it and heard it.
"I talk to people secretly. Customers come in and say 'Mama Flo, I'm struggling. That's all I have'. I don't even count it because I know it's not enough but I give them the meal."
Hungry kids flocked to Mama Flo's to enjoy a free meal of chicken, chips, rice and peas. As well as a hot home-cooked meal, children also received a goodie bag.
Florence, who used to sell copies of the Manchester Evening News outside the newspaper’s former offices on Deansgate, gave up her job on the perfume counters at Selfridges in 2010 to open her first takeaway in Gorton. She moved to the current premises in Buxton Road, Stockport, in 2013.
During the lockdowns, the grandmother-of-seven came to the community’s aid, providing hundreds of free meals to hospitals, care homes, and schools, as well as NHS staff and keyworkers.
She would often wake at 4am to start cooking for her 'Free Food Mondays', when she would provide meals for nurses, police officers and ambulance crews.
5. James Leader, Sam Willerton, Jake Cookson and Logan Fuller
When James Leader, Sam Willerton, Jake Cookson and Logan Fuller saw a man collapse in the street in front of them after having a seizure, they immediately sprung into action.
The four Alder Community High School students were walking along Stockport Road in Hyde when they saw Andy Jones, who was walking his dog at the time, stumble and fall.
Sam and Jake used medical training from The Duke of Edinburgh Award to keep Andy, 47, in an elevated position while James and Logan contacted the ambulance.
James said: “It was like instinct to help him, I did not just want to leave him there, I knew what to do in the moment. I was mainly just worried about him. I told the hospital that he was seizing, and they gave us instructions on what to do.”
Sam said that he was “panicking” yet showed initiative in the moment. “I ran to the top of the road and got the road name for the ambulance because they did not know where to go.”
When Andy and the students were later reunited, he praised their heroic actions. He said: “You should hold your heads up very very high, I am forever indebted. I could have been there for who knows how long."
6. James Anderson
Plumber James Anderson has helped thousands of families struggling to pay for food and gas this year.
Since founding community interest company Depher in 2017, he has supported more than 39,000 families. Among those he helped this year was a disabled man, from Fallowfield, who was left without food and facing a debt with his gas company of nearly £1,500.
While James's work started off as subsidising costs of broken boilers, or fixing leaks for free, it has expanded to offering help to people in need from buying a food shop, to helping with funeral costs.
During 2020 to 2021, Depher supplied £60,000 of PPE and food to families, care homes, front line workers and emergency services.
James was inspired to help those in need after the death of his baby son William at 16 weeks. Earlier this year, he was awarded a Special Recognition award at the Pride of Manchester awards for his efforts.
Depher’s work is supported through donations and private work, and James is regularly contacted about people struggling to make ends meet.
He previously told the M.E.N. that while he has been overwhelmed with the response and support, he believes the government needs to step up.
“We’re in a very sad state of affairs,” he said. “It’s all down to the government, they’ve got the power to press the reset button and sort this country out. It may cost a little bit more in the future, but let’s sort out the issues and the debt."
He added: “But as long as I’ve got fuel in my van and hands on my body, I’ll work and be there for people. If I have to sell the shirt off my back to do something to help someone, I’ll do it. I’ll always be there to help until the day I die."
7. Mike Palmer
Mike's daughter Beth was just 17 when she took her own life at the beginning of the lockdown in 2020.
The former firefighter, from Sale, said Beth was a vocal artist who had ‘the world at her feet’ at the time of her death. She had just signed a record deal and was moving up with her career.
He said coming to terms with what happened made him realise that more could be done. He believes it was fate that brought him to two other dads who were grieving the loss of daughters in similar circumstances.
Andy Airey, from the Lake District, lost his daughter Sophie in 2018 at the age of 28, and Tim Owen, from Norfolk, lost 19-year-old daughter Emily in the same month as Beth.
They formed a close bond and joined forces to walk 300 mile over 15 days between their homes across the country to raise money and talk to other men in similar situations.
To date, the group has raised more than £1 million for the suicide prevention charity PAPYRUS and received the backing from Hollywood stars, such as Daniel Craig.
8. Kevin Sinfield
Oldham-born rugby league legend Kevin Sinfield raised more than £2 million for Motor Neurone Disease (MND) charities by completing seven ultra-marathons in seven days.
The former Leeds Rhinos man was inspired to take on the challenge after his friend and former teammate Rob Burrow was diagnosed with the illness in 2019.
The marathon began in Edinburgh on November 10 and finished at Old Trafford where he arrived at half-time during the Rugby League World Cup men's final.
While he had aimed to raise £777,777, his donation page shows that he has now raised more than £2.2 million.
9. Czeslaw Sekrecki
Czeslaw Sekrecki bravely jumped into the "freezing cold" Bridgewater Canal to save an elderly woman who appeared to be drowning.
The 62-year-old acted without a second thought after noticing the woman, who was in her 80s, "topple" into the stretch of the canal near Liverpool Road in Eccles.
His daughter, Edyta Sliwinska said her dad, who is Polish and doesn't speak much English, was able to rescue the woman and pull to her to the shore as emergency services arrived.
Both Mr Sekrecki and the woman were seen to by paramedics, with the woman being taken to hospital where it is understood she was treated for shock.
Edyta and her partner praised her father's "heroic" actions as Mr Sekrecki admitted he also feared he would drown after realising how deep and the cold water was.
Speaking to the Manchester Evening News in May, Edyta said: "At around 9.30am my dad went for a walk along the canal. He works shifts from 2pm until 10pm so likes to get out and go for a walk in the morning with a coffee.
"He was sitting on a bench and talking to his mum on the phone when he noticed an elderly woman leaning towards the water. She toppled in and my dad started screaming. He jumped in the water and the woman was face down and looked like she was drowning.
"When he entered the water he realised how deep the canal was and it was freezing cold so he himself thought he might drown as well. He couldn’t stand up in the water because it was quite deep but he managed to pull her out."
10. Wendy Warrington
When horrifying news and pictures began to emerge from the war in Ukraine, one Bury grandmother decided she couldn't sit back and do nothing.
Earlier this year, in March, Wendy Warrington set out for the city of Przemysl - a short distance from the Polish Ukrainian border, to help refugees fleeing their war-torn homeland.
The qualified nurse and midwife, from Tottington, says she felt 'compelled' to help Ukrainians who had been displaced as a result of Russia's invasion of their country.
Wendy, 55, was given three weeks' leave from her role in the NHS and selflessly used her own money to fund her trip to eastern Europe.
"I just want to go and do my bit," she previously told the M.E.N. "I'm nobody special. I'm a 55-year-old woman with three kids and five grandchildren.
"I want to offer some practical support in what I'm trained to do. I just want to make a bit of a difference."
Wendy, who has worked for the NHS for 36 years, has family in Poland and her parents and grandparents were born in the country. Her grandfather moved to the UK after surviving the Auschwitz concentration camp.
"I'm apprehensive but quite excited," she said ahead of her trip. "I don't know what will happen or how it will transpire but I don't feel unsafe.
"My husband has made me promise not to cross the border to Ukraine and my eight-year-old granddaughter made me promise I will come back."
A JustGiving page has raised more than £14,000 towards medical supplies, which her husband Simon helped to ship out to Poland with the help of his employer, Segen.
"I knew my wife would have to go over there," said Simon. "That's the sort of person she is. She's going into the unknown so I do feel apprehensive. I get a bit emotional when I think about it but I'm proud of what she is doing."
Read more of today's top stories here
- Seriously injured man was 'screaming' and 'bleeding' in middle of quiet street after Bolton stabbing
- Why nurses in Greater Manchester are not striking as thousands set to walk out for the first time
- Terrified mum squirted in face with mystery substance by neighbour in 'petty' parking row
- Notorious Salford criminal going by nickname 'Stealthy' caught brokering sale of guns and heroin
- 'It was just a joke': Gym owner defends controversial billboard after vandals attack
