“OVER the past year, it’s been an extremely difficult time for everyone and the daily challenges have been an uphill battle. But as Northwich always does – it rose to those challenges and confronted them head-on.”
Those are the words of Dan Pender, one of the founders of Helping Hands –Northwich in Need, as he reflects on the preceding 12 months and looks to how this community group of volunteers will continue to help others in the town as the pandemic continues.
“The network of groups, organisations and volunteers out there offering support to the community is a credit to the town,” he said.
“The past year has shown us the importance of a helping hand in the town or local villages and how extending a hand can bring communities back together.”
Those helping hands, albeit virtual or heavily sanitised, for now, have ranged from Saturday night online concerts by Lee Mackenzie which have entertained thousands of people since last summer, to Northwich in Need volunteers helping to assist in verifying rough sleepers and getting clients the help and support they require.
Residents and businesses have been consistently generous, donating funds towards a Christmas dinner appeal and providing food resulting in more than 100 emergency hampers for people in temporary accommodation over the winter and as thank you parcels for staff in Northwich care homes.
During the recent floods, the group worked with Mid Cheshire Food Hub to provide hot meals to those evacuated with support from Vinnies, Bombay Quay, Birch and Bottle, and Davenham Royal British Legion (RBL).
And its latest altruistic endeavour is the Pencil Case Appeal which has been providing basic stationery to almost 600 children in Northwich, a quantity of which went to pupils from the flood-stricken Witton Church Walk Primary School.
Daniel explained: “We’ve been asking the community to get involved in providing basic learning essentials for homeschooling. Each pencil case contains blue and black pens, erasers, pencils, colouring pencils, a ruler and a pencil sharpener.
“It just so happened that this coincided with the floods so we were able to donate a number of them to the pupils from that school.
“Children have had an extremely difficult year this year and anything Helping Hands – Northwich in Need can do to make things easier is just the tip of the iceberg. The real heroes are the people in our community who answered the calls for help on social media.”
Next in the pipeline is the unveiling of the newly renovated Davenham RBL’s new-look function rooms, from which the group will continue run community activities once lockdown restrictions ease. The refurbed rooms will be unveiled online on February 13 via the group’s Facebook page, and one lucky person will be in with the chance to win the rental cost of the room, worth £500, for a function, whether that be a wedding reception or birthday party.
And with Easter on the horizon, the group’s next big campaign will be an Easter egg appeal.
Daniel added: “We have big plans for when we are able to re-open at Davenham RBL which will involve working locally within the community on projects where we can all help and support each other. We want to help local organisations to work closely together and we hope we can assist in supporting the local community even more.
“Northwich is a truly amazing town full of truly amazing people, there’s a lot of hope and support here and we hope we’ll be able to continue helping bring people together so they can help others too.”
Click here to visit the Helping Hands – Northwich in Need Facebook group for all upcoming campaigns and activities.
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