Warwick Rotarians this week heard from Stacey Bains of Transforming Communities Together Warwick, (TCTW) about their support to those in need during the recent Covid lockdown, and how this will be carried forward into November.

Stacey is Development Officer of TCTW, a partnership bringing together the 5 churches in Warwick, the Churches Urban Fund, King Henry VIII Trust and other local bodies. They aim to to support communities focusing on caring for families, supporting schools, breaking down barriers which lead to isolation and conflict, and tackle issues of systemic poverty working with existing projects, sharing information and best practice.

Stacey was busy setting up bereavement groups, care home support and befriending, training volunteers and developing youth services, mentoring and after school activities when Covid struck. Using her contacts with schools, charities, and local businesses they reached out to help the elderly and isolated, and families on low incomes. Stacey helped people who hadn’t dared to leave home to get food and delivered parcels of food from businesses which had to close, and from the Warwick Foodbank.

Warwick Rotary had already made donations to Warwick Foodbank and helped the St Michaels and St Pauls Make Lunch projects to provide lunches for kids on free school meals. In March this extended to food parcels to families and all the groups have co-ordinated to ensure no one has to go hungry. TCTW obtained £100,000 grants from DEFRA, Lottery Fund and elsewhere enabling them to provide 40,000 meals over the last few months. Using Gift Certificates from “Your Farmer Meals”, schools and other frontline organisations can “signpost” people to TCTW and provide food for collection.

Rotarians were pleased to welcome Evelyns Gift, Make Lunch, and Morrison’s Community Champion to the Zoom meeting and found that these are already working together, with the Council and Warwick Foodbank. Over the coming months co-ordination will be vital to ensure those in need in Warwick are supported.

Thanking Stacey for her presentation Rotarian Jon Wassall said it had surprised members, who had considered Warwick to be an affluent town, to discover that there were so many who could not make ends meet. Covid had made this so much worse with people afraid to leave home, and for the first time short of money due to furlough, losing their jobs and shielding. President David Brain told Stacey that the club would make a donation towards their work.

For further information see www.tctwarwick.co.uk

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