This June, we're launching a three-week campaign, spanning Volunteers' Week and Small Charity Week, to celebrate Nottingham's community response to the pandemic.
Now more than ever, we feel it's vital to shine a spotlight on the volunteers, charities and community/voluntary groups who are doing incredible work to support the city's most vulnerable people during the coronavirus crisis. Ordinarily we would use these national events to celebrate volunteers and small charities for all the work they do annually - but this year, we want to do more by sharing some of the stories of Nottingham's community response to COVID-19 and in doing so, raise the profile of these incredible organisations and individuals who deserve recognition and thanks.
We asked Nottingham's Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector to get involved by submitting stories, either a blog or vlog, about how their organisation has responded to the pandemic and what they have done to support people at this difficult time. We received a fantastic response to our call to action and will be sharing these stories on our website and social media channels (Twitter, Facebook & YouTube) throughout June (from Monday 1 June to Friday 19 June). Thank you to all those organisations who have offered to be involved and share their story.
Some of the amazing stories we've been hearing about include Nottingham Women's Centre setting up a new service to deliver food to vulnerable women in the city, Age UK Nottingham & Nottinghamshire establishing a 'Dear Friend' initiative with a local hospital to send letters and postcards to patients who haven't been able to receive visitors during lockdown, and Ignite Futures encouraging people to find solace and peace in nature, by working with The Renewal Trust to deliver seed kits to families in Sneinton and St Ann's.
We're in the process of setting up a dedicated web page on our website about the campaign and will be releasing more information soon. Please check back for updates.
We're also in talks with Nottingham City Council and NAVCA to take part in further activities to mark Volunteers' Week and say thank you to all those who have given their time to support their communities.
