A couple of weeks ago I told you that we were offering to help local residents affected by Coronavirus. Well this week we have delivered on that promise. All this despite the online shopping order being somewhat depleted on arrival to our offices in Manchester!
We were able to separate the order into 18 deliveries, split between residents in all three of the local councils that we serve (Manchester city council, One Manchester and Rochdale council). With the help of the councils, we selected the most in-need residents from our databases.
Three of our engineers were chosen to deliver the items individually, following all government guidelines for social distancing and venturing out in their Sheridan vans on the empty roads in their full PPE kit.
One engineer commented:
“This was an extremely humbling experience, but also very uplifting in the current climate, to be able to help these residents and make a real difference for them.
“Some of the customers greeted us, we made sure to ring doorbells and then step right back – whilst others spoke to us through their windows, thanking us and asking us to leave the bags by the doors”
Lewis in our service delivery team also reported that one lady also telephoned us after the drop and was nearly in tears on the phone.
As a business, we have a strong focus on offering social value through not only our contracts, but crucially through the goodwill and generosity of our directors and staff. Quite simply, we couldn’t do this without them. In times of hardship, we are proud to be able to offer our help.
We were very grateful recently to receive praise for our work in the midst of this awful Coronavirus outbreak, as well as receiving a glowing report from Rochdale Borough Council which I reported on last week. But this isn’t about us blowing our own trumpets, as it’s our aim to inspire more people to help.
We will continue to ensure that these vulnerable people are supported through these difficult times, and you can help too, by contributing to foodbanks which really does help the most vulnerable people in society.
Take a look at some of the other work we do with the community here, and do drop us a message if you need to contact us for any reason in these difficult times.