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| We were doing around 200 hot meals a day, seven days a week for five months. In the end we had to have a new kitchen put in to help do it |
A community hub provided hundreds of free hot meals and food parcels throughout lockdown to make sure that vulnerable residents didn't go without.
Twyn Community Hub in Twynrodyn, Merthyr Tydfil, was nominated more than 40 times as a WalesOnline Covid Hero due to the work it has done in providing care and supplies for older members of the community.
While the charity has operated in the community for several years, members of staff and volunteers have upped their efforts since March during the pandemic.
As well as providing 278 food parcels a week for residents, the hub also provided 200 hot meals a day, seven days a week for five months to feed vulnerable members of the community.
Louise Goodman, Project Coordinator and Manager of the Hub, took on her role with the charity just three weeks before lockdown was announced.
The mum-of-four from Merthyr said that in the first week the hub offered to help, they received more than 2000 wellbeing calls from people in the community.
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| The mum-of-four from Merthyr said that in the first week the hub offered to help, they received more than 2000 wellbeing calls from people in the community |
"I think at the start lots of elderly people were very confused about what was going on and the regulations between the Welsh Government and the UK and were worried about getting out," said Louise.
"I had only been in the job for three weeks when lockdown hit and so was thinking of how we as a hub could help. In the first week that we put the call out asking how to help out we had over 2000 wellbeing calls."
Louise, who is the only full time member of staff at the charity, alongside several part-time members and 20 volunteers, said the hub started to produce 50 food parcels a week for people in need which soon increased to over 200.
"As well as the food parcels, when we were speaking to people we found lots weren't eating properly so we decided to start a hot meals service.
"We were doing around 200 hot meals a day, seven days a week for five months. In the end we had to have a new kitchen put in to help do it.
"As well as the food, during our wellbeing checks we found that lots of our older benefactors were isolated or lonely. We had some very distressing calls so we've been ringing even just for a chat to help them.
"We started to move more into mental health and will be going forward. I think lots of people were frustrated at not being able to get out and not understanding what was happening," said Louise.
The hub also made sure to keep the younger members of the community entertained by providing online guitar lessons, crafts and bake boxes.
WalesOnline has teamed up with Amazon – whose own staff went above and beyond to keep deliveries going through lockdown – to recognise the Covid Heroes in our communities.
We want to hear about the Covid Heroes of your community. All we need you to do is fill in the form below and nominate a person, organisation or group that has made a difference to your life in 2020. Hundreds of people and organisations from across Wales have already been nominated like Twyn Community Hub.
If you can’t see the survey, click here.
Louise said that she "can't believe" the hub has been nominated as a Covid Hero so many times and said the volunteers helping the charity have been "amazing".
"I've got shivers even thinking about it, I can't believe it.
"The community and the volunteers are just amazing people. I just want to say thanks to everyone who nominated us, it is so uplifting."
One person who nominated the hub but didn't want to be named said: "They have been absolutely marvellous and have done so much for everybody in the community.
"Whether it was picking up shopping or just a check in - they did so much for so many vulnerable people."