COVID19 Reintroducing shopping and community transport services for older people in West Somerset (360G-SomersetCF-A566335)
Funding Organization
£2,880
Recipient Organization
Reintroducing shopping and community transport services for older people in West Somerset
Where is this data from?
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Grant Details
| Amount Applied For | 2879 |
| Amount Awarded | 2880 |
| Award Date | 2020-07-31T00:00:00+00:00 |
| Beneficiary Location: Country Code | GB |
| Beneficiary Location: Geographic Code | E01029330 |
| Beneficiary Location: Geographic Code Type | LSOA |
| Beneficiary Location: Name | West Somerset 001D |
| Grant Programme: Code | 2020/21 COVID19 - Response |
| Grant Programme: Title | Grants to Groups |
| Last Modified | 2021-04-28T00:00:00+00:00 |
| Planned Dates: Duration (months) | 5 |
| Planned Dates: End Date | 2021-01-31T00:00:00+00:00 |
| Planned Dates: Start Date | 2020-08-10T00:00:00+00:00 |
| Primary beneficiary | Older People |
| Primary ethnicity | All Ethnicities |
| Recipient Org: Charity Number | 1111116 |
| Recipient Org: Company Number | 05398337 |
| Recipient Org: Description | Accessible Transport West Somerset provides local accessible transport for everyone across the West Somerset. Transport is costly to run, one adapted minibus alone now costs around £56,000 to buy and adapt so our accounts are very carefully balanced. There are two aspects to the transport which we run: (1) Contract work for Somerset County Council which includes school transport, two public bus routes and a dial-a-ride service. Somerset Community Foundation’s help with a grant towards massive sanitisation costs, enabled us proudly to keep these services going since the pandemic started. This work makes a charitable surplus which supports our other work with vulnerable and isolated people. You enabled us to provide Perspex screens, a fogging machine (the first one wasn’t very successful so the company replaced it), and masses of wipes, masks, disinfectant, strength and good humour to keep our vehicles pristine. (2) This surplus is used to subsidise our core work of shopping buses, a travel club and small journeys for care home residents, which assists disabled, vulnerable, socially and rurally isolated members of our community to travel on door to door, accessible minibuses. These wheelchair accessible vehicles have grab rails, low steps, floor tracking for removable seats, tail lifts/ ramps, and a friendly trained driver to help. Almost anyone can travel. In this way, and in ‘normal’ times, passengers can go shopping, to medical appointments, see friends, on trips, have a hot meal, and to live a normal life with a discreet bit of help. Furthermore, these people retain their independence with this support which is crucial for their mental and physical wellbeing. For care home residents, it’s a means of escape from their 4 walls. Core transport has not run throughout the Covid-19 pandemic - risks to its vulnerable passengers were too great and they have been staying at home for months. We had a Lottery grant to restart at Christmas but the added safety features introduced by shops meant queuing and standing and too many people around, so it was unsafe. Our 2 most important achievements are: (1) enabling our community to keep travelling if permitted, and if they felt safe to do so. Our drivers took on board all the safety and cleaning that was crucial and never complained. (2) And, of the utmost importance, after huge concern about our vulnerable people, we decided to keep in touch with our housebound passengers via cheerful monthly Newsletters to tell them what was happening. With a grant from the National Lottery, we were able to post these newsletters to isolated people who were suffering from the ill effects of being stuck at home with poor internet, seeing almost no-one, and the consequent physical and mental deterioration which this causes. So, we told them about bits of advice, what we were doing, stories of others, our plans for restarting their treasured shopping buses, vital information which they needed and an encouragement to keep in touch with us – which they did. We have a kept a log of what they said – one lady said that keeping in touch for her meant writing more letters, for which she used the dial-a-ride to get to the postbox! There was a third achievement which was unexpected. We managed to divert funds to have every vehicle, our compound and our office building thoroughly deep cleaned to keep people even more safe. It wasn’t expensive; though deep cleaning was done by contractors, our staff contributed with their time to clear the weeds, remark the lines, renew the fence and to make all good for a new start…when it finally comes!! Now we are looking forward to June when we think that we will be able to restart our core services socially distanced but safely. This will be an expensive but carefully phased restart which will need us to keep firmly in touch with our isolated passengers to tell them exactly when they can resume their normal, if tentative, travelling ..and life! |
| Recipient Org: Web Address | http://atwest.org.uk |