John signed up to volunteering due to the high levels of responses that his Facebook group had received, it seemed like it was going to become an all hands on deck situation and he knew that he needed to start to work differently.
“I am really enjoying the whole experience and have witnessed our community come together during the crisis. We started shopping for people but it quickly evolved into a mobile food bank dropping of shopping bags to those in need, also picking up doorstep donations. We also ran a book swap with games and puzzles to beat the boredom. My group Helping the Isolated worked alongside McS, Breaking the Cycle, Helping the Aged and the Melton hub to make sure we could cover as much ground as possible.”
John and his team have been immensely touched by people’s generosity. They have received many donations including some from people that they have been helping during Covid-19.
My biggest learning would be how much the older generation are against asking for help and if we had to do this again i would look for better ways to approach people. This time round i distributed leaflets with our contact numbers on which worked very well but i still had PM’s from concerned neighbours and friends asking if we could help, so as i say some tweaking required. I have met new people, made new friends and seen people I perhaps already knew in passing in a new light.
They are in the discussion stage of the future of their group, John stated that he would love to be kept on our Volunteering list so that he is able to make a difference to people’s lives and help in the future in any way he can.