Harrogate Easier Living Project (HELP) is preparing for an increase of calls for help from people after coronavirus.
Requests to the charity for food bank and supermarket vouchers have already increased. It says help for practical jobs could also increase as people struggle financially.
From April to June it has supported over 500 families and individuals. Over lockdown it provided a variety of help including dropping off books and puzzles to those isolating and moving beds for covid patients returning from hospital.
The charity was initially “overwhelmed” at the beginning of the pandemic but it was able to recruit over 200 volunteers to help it as demand increased.
Lizzie Hughes, Project Development Worker, said that as lockdown eases people will still need their help:
“Whilst we are receiving fewer urgent requests for support and emergency food shopping now, we are still carrying out on average around 120 tasks every week for people in Harrogate and Ripon. A number of people are struggling financially and we’re seeing a lot more people needing to access the food banks or asking us to apply for supermarket vouchers for them.
“Physical and mental health may prevent some local residents from being able to fully participate in community life for some time to come. We also anticipate an increase in demand for practical help with jobs that have built up during lockdown and need arising from economic hardship exacerbated by the virus.”
Gill, a HELP volunteer, took her pony Maple for a socially distant walk round the houses of some of HELP’s isolating clients to cheer them up.
Read more:
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- Open Country, a disability charity in Harrogate, has found a way to bring the outdoors into people’s homes during lockdown.
The organisation offers a support network for those in need of help across Harrogate and Ripon. Over lockdown HELP has been working with the most vulnerable to assist them in any way they need.
Lizzie added:
“From April to June, we supported an additional 501 families and individuals, carried out 822 shopping trips and 112 people received befriending phone calls. We appreciate that doing someone’s shopping isn’t going to be the answer to all their problems so we have been making welfare calls to all our clients offering them additional support.”
