Evesham Volunteer Centre
Evesham Volunteer Centre has provided a crucial lifeline for elderly and vulnerable people across the Vale for over 35 years with a patch that covers 23 rural parishes plus the town itself, over 200 volunteers are directly involved with the Centre, providing services that include taking people shopping, providing transport to hospitals, organising lunch and social clubs for the elderly, or simply spending an hour or two with someone in their own home to alleviate isolation.
The COVID-19 pandemic totally changed the volunteering landscape for the Centre with nearly all of the normal requirements put on hold as hospitals and social activities were curtailed, to be replaced by new challenges.
From doing accompanied shopping for around 8 people a week we became shopper drivers for 84 with a volunteer team of 25 people. From doing one or two prescription deliveries a week the Centre was asked by a group of pharmacies to deliver 200 prescriptions a day in order to overcome the backlog of prescriptions required by those shielding or self-isolating. 50 volunteers were involved in this. We also delivered some food parcels to families in need.
Without the generous grant from Worcestershire Community Foundation we would not have been able to meet this new landscape head on and to rise to the new order we found ourselves facing.