It's Feelgood Friday Again Folks
In this two ish-minute round-up, we share some of the good news and positive things happening during life under lockdown across Tamworth and the UK.
Welcome to the fourth Feelgood Friday update from us at Next Place.
1) Personally, I've had a great week, I want to tell you what I've realised this week, TAMWORTH IS FLIPPIN AWESOME!!! Please please please check out my videos from this week. Alex from Two Gates has set up a number of online community groups on Facebook with more than 7000 members, all because she saw a post fom someone with Crohns disease looking to swap pasta for much needed toilet roll.
I’ve interviewed someone I went to school with who has set up and amassed a group of 70 volunteers in Polesworth, serving the community. 4 weeks ago, it didn’t exist!
I've found out about a group called community CIC that is doing that much work in Tamworth, it serviced around 1000 people a week across their groups, and that’s in a normal week! During these difficult times, they have set up a phone line assisting people in need as well as their 104 volunteers helping with prescription deliveries across our town!!
I've interviewed a Tamworth councillor that’s helped pull together, in conjunction with the CIC, and food deliveries with the food bank helping vulnerable people.
Finally I've spoken to our local Hygiene Bank, a very little known charity that supplies 5 local schools, along with lots of local groups, including the food bank with hygiene products, which hopefully I have helped with a lead into a supermarket chain to act as a drop off and collection point!
And here are four other pieces of national news which made me smile this week.
Salute the Captain. How could you not notice Captain Tom Moore? The 99-year-old war veteran has walked 100 laps of his garden to raise more than £17m for the NHS.
Captain Moore wanted to raise £1,000 for NHS Charities Together by completing 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday.
But he surged past his target after hundreds of thousands of people donated to his fundraising page.
As he finished the challenge, which has made him front-page news up and down the country, he said: "I feel fine, I hope you're all feeling fine too."
Marvellous Miss Maisie. And in another act of support for our NHS superheroes, a ten-year-old girl from Manchester has raised money for the NHS by making rainbow keyrings. Maisie Appleton made the keyrings and started by putting them outside her family's home. Her mum said: "People passing on their daily walk were welcome to take one and if possible, give a little donation to the Salford Royal Hospital’s official Just Giving page. But it ended up growing bigger than we thought and she has now made a total of 360 keyrings and raised over £250 with donations still coming in. A lot of nurses and NHS staff now have these keyrings after seeing them online, and some have gone to NHS staff at hospitals as far away as London."
It's official - We're getting more community-spirited. According to a report from the Office of National Statistics (ONS), more than half of adults surveyed in the UK say they feel an increased sense of community spirit and cohesion with their neighbours.
The report also stated that staying in touch with family and friends remotely was the most common way for people to try to cope (76.9%) with COVID-19 induced anxiety. So, remember to pick up the phone or send a message and let your loved ones know you are there and that you care.
Sew kind. Volunteers across the UK are using their sewing skills to make urgently needed hospital uniforms for health workers fighting the Coronavirus outbreak.
Many frontline NHS staff are without the protective clothing they need to do their jobs safely.
And rising to the challenge thousands of amateurs across the UK have taken to their sewing machines and are making hospital overalls – known as scrubs.
They are also using pillow cases so that uniforms can be put straight into the bag, and straight into the washing machine to reduce cross contamination, and creating head straps with material and buttons for works so that elastic doesn’t dig into workers ears.
It's incredible to see the generosity, compassion, ingenuity, kindness and care that people are showing across the UK and in Tamworth.
From all at Next Place, if there is anything we can do to support members of our community in Tamworth, please get in touch.
Check out the video version here. https://youtu.be/M-A6JIVsAzY