A COMMUNITY organisation in Teesdale is planning to expand a scheme that has seen thousands of packages of essentials items delivered to struggling families.
TCR Hub, in Barnard Castle, launched its care packages scheme at the start of the pandemic. In giving feedback to Barnard Castle Town Council, The Hub’s chief executive, Rachel Tweddle, said the weekly deliveries on Wednesdays and Saturdays were steaming ahead with about 100 households continuing to benefit.
Ms Tweddle said The Hub was waiting on ratification for a funding application which could see an additional staff member working 20 hours a week.
She said: “That will be for somebody to run things like the care packages, but also to look a little bit more at food resilience, look at food waste, look at how we can support local businesses, and look at our own grounds in producing food.
“So that is a really exciting thing that has come from this situation.”
Ahead of the festive season The Hub recruited an army of volunteers to collect food and treats from across the dale with the ambition of presenting families with a Christmas hamper.
Ms Tweddle said: “We recruited about 40 volunteers who all took a street, or a village, or an estate, each and asked their neighbours to leave some food outside. Then they picked up the food and brought it to the Hub.
“It was astounding the amount of stuff that was donated – The Hub was absolutely full and still is in some parts.”
Along with non-perishable food, people had also given toiletries and cleaning materials.
She added: “We got a lot of support from local businesses with that as well, so that was a really positive thing to do before Christmas and it meant we could hand out some fantastic hampers to local people.”
The town council’s partnership committee chairman, Cllr Ian Kirkbride, who had given a donation, praised the volunteers who picked up the items at exactly the time they said they would.
He said: “It is the innovation and the ideas – quite clearly there are a lot of people with some very good and forward-thinking ideas to get those donations on a street basis and set a timetable – that alone is highly creditable.”
The Hub also put on festive themed activities for the community, Ms Tweddle said.
She added: “We had a few initiatives like the Light Up Teesdale, we did the Barney Elf and the Doorstep Santa, which was absolutely brilliant. It was really well received and we loved doing that.”
Town mayor Cllr John Blissett, who saw the doorstep Santa in action, described it as “an absolutely brilliant job” which had lit up children’s faces.
Ms Tweddle confirmed that the Covid-19 lockdown means the centre’s doors remain closed, but this had not prevented some activities from going ahead, albeit using online platforms.
She added: “That’s things like jewellery making, art therapy, singing for well-being and outdoor activities – they are all virtual at the minute, which hasn’t been ideal, although the workshop leaders were prepared for that and have been really innovative in their approach. People get resources packs delivered to their houses and that again has gone down very well.”
Ms Tweddle said the activities form part of a three-year project. She explained: “We are not sure quite how that is going to pan out for the rest of this year because we are waiting to hear the next set of news as to when people can come back into the building and start accessing things face to face.
“My job over the last month has been finding funding to keep us going over the next 12 months because we don’t know when we will get any unrestricted revenue through the door.”
