Karen Page, Gill Radford, Sam Sim - Representing the Luddenden Mayor and St Mary’s Food Parcel Volunteers

"The Mayor’s Fund has always been for the village, that’s its whole purpose, and with this pandemic we initially wanted to help the people who were isolated and needed shopping doing, newspapers collecting or just simple phone calls for a chat. So we started off by getting volunteers together who were prepared to do the shopping for these people and take it round to their homes.
We then became aware that quite a lot of people were not being paid because of the furlough situation or money hadn’t come through from the government. So our plans developed towards giving out food and we were generously given money donations from the Conservation Society and also from several individuals in the village as well as food donations. We are working together with St Mary’s Church as a joint venture and we’re at the stage now of creating food parcels to give out to people who contact us through our Facebook page or by any of the phone numbers we have provided.
We started on March 21st and have 20-30 volunteers and have provided more than 40 call-outs.
Food donations can be left in the Vicarage porch on Carr Field Drive or in the Phone Box on High Street where there is more information."

2.5.20