Community / Cooked meals, emergency food packs and iPads for care residents among pandemic help from community council
GULBERWICK, Quarff and Cunningsburgh Community Council has offered more details on how it will use its £12,000 coronavirus support grant – with home cooked meals for the vulnerable, emergency food packs and iPads for care residents all on the agenda.
The community council is keen to spread the word of what help is available in the area, while it is also looking for potential volunteers to give a hand.
It is one of many community councils in Shetland to receive funding from Scottish Government’s supporting communities fund, which aims to help people through the pandemic.
Gulberwick, Quarff and Cunningsburgh Community Council is providing money to groups and charities it knows are already supporting people in the community.
It is providing a £250 donation to Shetland Foodbank, and money to Shetland Women’s Aid to help pay for wifi installation in its refuge.
Money will also go towards supermarket and electricity vouchers for people arriving in the refuge, and to support/wellbeing packs for clients who are unable to meet face to face.
It is also buying three iPads for the Overtonlea care centre for residents to stay in touch with family and friends.
A care at home goody bag and a ‘keeping connected’ CD of songs done in a Give Us A Tune format is being provided.
The community council is also paying for an hour a week of web-development for Mind Your Head and its coronavirus support page, and it is funding a number of its ‘feel good bags’.
More locally, it is using funds for Cunningsburgh cafe and shop Mackenzie’s to cook and supply 20 free ‘home-cooked’ meals every week for three months.
These will go to people who are vulnerable, ill or lonely, or busy key workers living alone in the community. The service will start on 29 May and the community council is now taking names.
A leaflet will be delivered to every household in the community council area once a month with the latest information, while emergency food and hygiene packs for people going in or out of hospital are available.
Packs for families with babies, mobile phone vouchers and electricity tokens are available, with help coming from Mackenzie’s and Sound Service Station.
The community council also buying three mobile phones for volunteers to take turns in a rota to answer calls relating to community council business.
The group is especially looking for volunteers to hand out leaflets and to answer the mobile phones.
Clerk Kerry Geddes can be contacted on clerk@gqc-communitycouncil.co.uk.
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