Covid-19 Community Response

Throughout 2020 and 2021 the Community of the Carron Valley and District rallied together to responded to the impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

VRG secured funding via FALCK Renewable’s Covid Community Fund to implement projects providing additional support to the community during this time. The following grants were available:

Hardship Fund: £100 grant to households facing financial hardship as a consequence of the pandemic. 20 grants were provided to at total of 11 households dealing with a range of hardship, including having been furloughed, unemployed, being self-employed and not able to trade or other financial difficulties; bearing the additional costs of having to care for someone; and having connectivity difficulties and lack of hardware.
Children’s Grant: A payment of £100 was available to each household with a child under 18 years of age to be used for their benefit during the crisis to alleviate the consequences of schools being closed, such as software or hardware. 15 households in the community each benefited from two Children’s grants each. Grants we’re used for tuition, laptops/tablets, a printer and noise-cancelling headphones.
Play & Learn Boxes: Packages were offered to children under school age. These packages included a box of books and toys matched to the age and development of the child, the boxes contained a value of £50 of toys, and the books were donated. Six Play and Learn packages were delivered to families in the community, three four-year olds, a three-year old and two one- year olds.

A Volunteer Team with 20 volunteers was set up which provided further support across the community including:

Home Delivery Service – for those isolating or otherwise unable to get out. The service provided essentials such as food, medicine, hygiene items, pet food etc as well as other items on request.
Friendly Ear – the opportunity to talk to an empathetic listener for anyone, of any ages feeling anxious, worried or lonely.
Virtual Meeting Room – Online Video Call Service for residents to use, enabling them to meet over the phone with as many relatives and friends as they wished.
Car Battery Maintenance – flat batter changing for anyone with a flat vehicle battery following long period of non-use.

VRG also ran a Lockdown Photo completion and a Lockdown Creativity Feature in the Community Newsletter with prizes for winners and those featured in the newsletter. Thanks go to all those who volunteered their time to support their fellow Carron Valley and District residents during this difficult time and to Falck Renewables for the funding to enable the provision of grants.

PROJECT TEAM

Helen Bang, Peter Hayward, Christine Puckering & Nicolas Sinclair

PROJECT LINKS & DOCUMENTS

“Thank you so much for facilitating our grant. Our family have us under “lock and key” since we are both in our 80’s so our utilities bills are somewhat increased! This cheque will certainly help. Thank You.

My greenhouse, which you also helped me with is now up and running, and I’ve now managed to grow and plant out quite a few veggies, as well as quite a few flowers, so thank you again for facilitating that.“

Hardship Grant Recipient

“The Falck Covid 19 hardship fund has been extremely beneficial for myself. I work in the hospitality industry and therefore over the pandemic it has been an extremely tough time for the industry. The Falck fund has really helped me out over this tough time and I am extremely appreciative of it.“

Hardship Grant Recipient

“I would like to send my thanks for our Hardship payment. It came at just the right time, for we had just had to get an Oil delivery, which is a very costly way to heat the house. (I am on medication which means I feel cold most of the time so heating is a real priority in our house). So Thanks yet again to VRG.”

Hardship Grant Recipient

PROJECT TEAM

PROJECT LINKS & DOCUMENTS

“Thank you so much for facilitating our grant. Our family have us under “lock and key” since we are both in our 80’s so our utilities bills are somewhat increased! This cheque will certainly help. Thank You.

My greenhouse, which you also helped me with is now up and running, and I’ve now managed to grow and plant out quite a few veggies, as well as quite a few flowers, so thank you again for facilitating that.“

“Thank you so much the support is very much appreciated and it has really helped ease some of the stress caused by Covid.“

“Brilliant, it’s much appreciated. The last one bought some garden toys which went down a treat.“

“Fantastic. The wee one and I were at clubs every day before the lockdown so we’re looking forward to new toys for play (especially messy play). “