Group making a difference

THIS week, BBC CWR marks one year since the launch of our Make a Difference campaign. It was set up as a way of helping communities across Coventry and Warwickshire through the pandemic, and celebrating the people who go above and beyond to help others.

It was also a great way of putting listeners in touch with the help and advice they needed.

Since the launch, Make a Difference has evolved from helping to get food and basic essentials for isolated listeners, to more recently helping to find 116,000 devices for schoolchildren across the country to assist with their home-schooling, as part of the ‘Give a Laptop’ campaign.

As we mark one year since the pandemic began, many organisations are doing just the same, including The Warwick and Leamington Covid-19 support group.

Set up on Facebook last year, the group now has over 7,000 members and are a point of contact for Leamington and Warwick residents. Whether they need access to basic essentials or simply someone to talk to, the group is there to help anyone.

Rebecca Mcdougall is the group admin, who co-ordinates the team of volunteers by looking at messages coming through and ensuring everyone gets access to the help they require.

Looking back at this time last year, Rebecca says that on the first day alone, the Facebook group received 4,523 new members.

At the start, the group of volunteers were unsure how to deal with shopping and contactless payments. All this is ironed out now and everything runs a lot more smoothly.

The group also runs a ‘phone pals’ scheme, where people that are lonely can ring up and have a friendly conversation. Unbelievably, there have been around 5,000 phone calls made.

Rebecca says her standout moment is the ‘spare plate’ over Christmas initiative, where members of the community were encouraged to dish up a spare Christmas dinner, for those who would have gone without.

As you can imagine, Rebecca and the whole team are incredibly proud of the important role they have played during the pandemic, and that will continue.