Category: Communitiy activities
Description:
Thistle Housing Association received the Supporting Communities Fund grant to assist with support in their communities and tenants due to the impact of covid-19. The projects they will carry out are:
Emergency Food bank Collection Point
At the very start of lock down, Thistle HA secured funding from the Lottery and Community Partnership to provide residents of Toryglen with emergency food parcels every week until end of June 2020. Our parcels had reached 230 every week and was not reducing in numbers. Due to the first phase coming out of lockdown, we only deliver to those over age 70 years (or any other resident who is unable to collect due to medical/mobility issues) who are not receiving support from anywhere else. A collection point in our community hall was established for all other residents to collect a parcel once per week with fresh food, non-perishable and household essentials. A total of 124 food parcel bags are being collected weekly.
Hot Meals for Elderly
During our reactive support to our elderly the first couple of months of lockdown, through delivery of emergency parcels and our wellbeing calls, it became increasingly evident that our elderly, by in large mostly living alone, were suffering the most in regards to mental health and accessing nutritious food. A home cooked meal once per week, delivered to their door, allowed for additional contact and ensuring our elderly were able to look forward to enjoying a freshly cooked meal, a soup and main course. The feedback so far from receiving the meals have been extremely positive and engaging.
Children’s Activity Packs
As predominantly flatted properties in Toryglen, we know many of our families with children are struggling with lock down with no access to outdoor space. To alleviate the pressure of our families and support children with mental stimulation, we are providing activity bags over the summer holidays. We have a strong relationship with families, in part from providing the GCC holiday food programme the last few years, so our contacts and engagement allow us easier connection. Through letters to all our previous registered holiday food programme families as well as our highly engaged community Facebook social media page ‘Cornerstone Community Hall Toryglen’, we have 130 families register for the activity packs, with an average of 90 collecting for each activity pack.
Digital Inclusion community library
Lockdown highlighted a need for many in our community to:
· be educated on the benefits of digital inclusion
· have additional ways to contact family and friends, social isolation and loneliness for our elderly particularly a challenge
· be able to have access to a tablet and internet for education purposes, to support their children with schooling, have better access online to improve finance options.
This project requires more organisation and research, liaising with IT contractors to set up and ensure the tablets are fit for purpose. Producing new policy and procedures for loan of the tablets, providing safe usage for all. Tablets have been purchased and expect the digital library to be able to commence in the month of August.
Fuel Support
Our strong partnership with Home Energy Scotland provided an opportunity for us to promote a £49 energy top up to tenants who had a prepaid meter, via the Redress fund.
A letter was distributed to 947 tenants advising of this support if they had a prepaid meter requesting tenants to register for the voucher via their Association. We then registered tenants on the Home energy Scotland portal. Home energy then contacted the tenants to advise on Energy efficiency and support, and providing a £49 voucher direct to the tenant.
Additional Information:
Source: Thistle Housing Association
