Special deliveries begin thanks to trust donation
Slough: Community transport charity uses cash to help deliver vital supplies
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Slough Community Transport received a £1,000 grant from the Louis Baylis Trust in its latest round of donations. The money has enabled the charity to deliver prescriptions and shopping to vulnerable and self-isolating people.
A £1,000 donation from the Louis Baylis Trust helped Slough Community Transport complete more than 10,000 shopping and medication deliveries this year.
The charity, based at the Kingsway United Reformed Church, Church Street, saw its day-to-day operations severely impacted by the announcement of a national lockdown in March.
Its drivers would normally be ferrying elderly people around the town to visit friends and family, go shopping and attend hospital appointments as well as helping disabled children get to school.
But the closure of schools and instructions for people to stay at home saw the charity’s regular stream of income stopped. Rather than furlough its employees, the organisation decided to launch a prescription collection and
shopping delivery service to help those self-isolating in the town.
It has now completed almost 11,000 deliveries since March.
Steph Simonetti, operations manager, said: “When it all first kicked off with lockdown we thought we could furlough the staff but there is a huge need in Slough for help so we decided to start doing
shopping deliveries and medication deliveries.
“Predominantly we were helping elderly people with shopping but with medication we got all sorts, from the 18year-old whose self-isolating if they’re living with the grandma through to elderly people who have nobody else to go and get it for them.”
The Louis Baylis Trust, owners of the Advertiser, gave
£1,000 to Slough Community Transport in its latest round of donations in July.
Steph added: “It’s just enabled us to keep going. We don’t have regular funders or our usual income coming in so it just helps us to be able to deliver to another 1,000 people.”
Visit www.sloughcommunitytransport.com for more details.