As the nation has looked for ways to support those working on the front line, BISCuit (Bosham Isolation Support Community) has reached out to local care homes to see how we can help them. This project was divided into two areas – sourcing emergency PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) and delivering gift hampers for their hard-working staff.
To date, we’ve been able to source emergency PPE donations for seven local care homes close to Bosham. Cloth face masks were donated by a local business, PMA Communications (https://www.pmacommunications.com/). We bought disposable masks using our own fund and face visors were made and donated by Frazer, one of the BISCuit support team. We have pointed the care homes to voluntary sewing group Scrub Hub (https://scrubhub.org.uk/), Bosham sailmaker Dick Batt (http://www.battsails.com/), who is making visors, and West Sussex County Council. We are making calls to them regularly to check on how they are doing and to see if they have any needs we can help with. The feedback has been great.
‘Dear BISCuit, I just wanted to say a massive thank you for donating us some masks, we have been really struggling and it was such a lovely surprise to see them on my desk this evening. Thank you to your wonderful team.’
Anna, Home Manager, Cornelius House, Fishbourne
For the gift hampers, one of our volunteers, Madeleine, coordinated donations of everything from hand cream to chocolates and magazines from the BISCuit volunteers and made up the hampers and delivered them to 11 local care homes. Madeleine commented: ‘The staff of the care homes were really grateful to receive the hampers and appreciated the support shown by the village. It's brilliant to see that we could cheer them up in such difficult times!’ We also received some lovely feedback from the homes on the hampers.
‘Dear BISCuit - thank you so much for your generous donation to Beggars Roost Nursing Home, it was gratefully received by us all and we appreciate the recognition and goodies that were in the hamper, it bought us some light relief at the end of a day. Love and thanks to all the volunteers.’
Karen Curd, Matron, Beggars Roost, Bosham