Grant helps deliveries to carry on
Community transport charity uses cash to help deliver vital supplies
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 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 selfisolating 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 who’s 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 Express, gave £1,000 to Slough Community Transport in its latest round of donations in July.
Steph added: “It’s 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.sloughcommunitytranspor t.com