Volunteers help community centre to reach isolated residents
A surge in volunteering support has allowed The Vine Community Centre to launch a wealth of new services to help isolated people during the first lockdown (2020).
The centre has gone from having two volunteers to 40! Thanks to these amazing individuals, the centre has been able to extend its lunch club, set up a dog-walking service and much more! Charmaine Binns, Centre Development Worker, explains ...
When lockdown began, we knew we needed to shut the community centre to keep residents safe, but we didn’t want to shut up shop completely.
We began talking with local community hubs, charities, food banks and trusted, registered organisations, such as Nottingham Community and Voluntary Service, to establish where the need was in the city and plan our emergency response around this. As more volunteers came forward to offer their help, we were able to think wider about the services we could offer, and an action plan was formed.
We knew there were many people in our communities who were having to self-isolate and would be confined to their homes, as a result of the outbreak. We responded by partnering with local community groups Pulp Friction and Bestop Kitchen (Bestwood Park Church) as well as national food-waste charity FareShare to extend our lunch club and set up a Sunday roast project. The project provides a two-course meal, every Sunday, to over 100 individuals a week and our lunch club is inclusive, catering to a wide range of different dietary and cultural requirements.
Our amazing volunteers help out by delivering these hot meals in the community. They also provide further support to those that are self-isolating by regularly picking up groceries and/or prescriptions, running a dog-walking service, and scheduling regular phone/video catch ups with local people who may be feeling lonely or afraid.
None of what we are doing now would be possible without our volunteers, they go above and beyond the call of duty! A big thank you to them, our community partners and our funders Castle Cavendish, Nottingham City Council, Edward Gostling, Nottingham Community Foundation, National Lottery Community Fund and the National Emergency Fund.
Find out more about The Vine Community Centre on their website.
