93 92 Our Facebook group – which now had almost 2,000 members! ARC would collect medication and do shopping for people and we started to see referrals for help flood in. We also were blown away by the hundreds of people who volunteered to help ARC. One of our early stumbling blocks was how people could pay for shopping. It took a while for us to resolve this but resolve it we did, thanks to the help and support of the incredible Heather Chalkley at Rushmoor Voluntary Services (RVS) and one of our amazing coordinators, Becky Williams. The ARC coordinators were amazing! They manned phones, went through emails, called people, coordinated volunteers, went shopping, collected prescriptions, and willingly went the extra mile. And a very special mention to every single incredible ARC volunteer, our foot soldiers who shopped, collected, carried and delivered again and again. When I think of what we achieved in such a short amount of time and the numbers of people who volunteered and were helped, it is heartwarming to see a community coming together to help each other. A resident contacted us saying that his benefits had not come through. He said he could not pay for any food and I said that this was not a problem. He then asked for cat food. I asked him about food for himself but he said he was just worried about his cat. I pressed him further and explained that we would be happy to provide food for him and his cat. He was overjoyed and very thankful. Britain could never have been prepared for lockdown, it was unprecedented. So many people, especially older residents, were left with no way to pay for shopping – as they were used to paying by card or with cash. So many people were unsure what to do about having food delivered, paying for things, how to pay for bills or services, etc. Many people are not online and many do not even have a mobile phone; they wouldn’t know how to use online banking or carry out mobile bank transfers even if they did. So many people were struggling. Families with children in receipt of free school meals were given food vouchers they could not use because they didn’t have a printer to print them out. Whole families living on low incomes were forced to isolate and did not know who to call about food they normally picked up from food banks! What Covid was revealing were the many inequalities existing in our communities. We were being told that we were ‘all in this together’ but so many people were actually feeling alone, scared, disconnected and insecure. The one issue above even the poverty was the number of residents experiencing loneliness and struggling with their mental health – even before Covid. Those who were elderley and had lost their spouses, those who had a disability and were cut off, those with diagnosed mental health issues who were suffering, often in silence and with little support. For these people especially lockdown was a nightmare When I wasn’t supervising the ARC team, I kept my mind active by gardening and turned my postage stamp of a garden into a little paradise. Somewhere I would sit and listen to the birds – that seemed so much louder during lockdown. Viv Dawes
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTI5NzM=