The Corona Chronicles - Hedgecock Community Centre, Barking Foodbank launched

This morning I received a distressing voice recording detailing the agony of a young child with the coronavirus. 

The family are isolated at home in West London and desperate for food packs. We have been working with partners to resolve this. 

This is a situation which is no longer an isolated one and as I write this I’m listening to Prime Minister Boris Johnson announce that plans are afoot to ensure supermarkets and food providers may now need to supply doorstep deliveries of food essentials. 

This comes as a final warning to the public in terms of responsible social distancing. 

The PM doesn’t want to go down this route but may be forced to take a hard look at the more draconian measures taken by our fellow European leaders. 

To me it sounds like further measures are coming and I think with some parks closing tonight this could be somewhat in effect by tomorrow.

This would be through subsidiary hubs and involve supervision from some of the country’s greatest military minds to execute planning and distribution.

I applaud the governments actions but do wonder at how this would be actually executed in practise. 

Today we debuted our #HedgecockCommunityCentreFoodbank and I’m really pleased to report that we were able to reach out to 26 people in our community - East Ham, Barking & Dagenham, Romford.  

We have an extremely small and tight knit team of volunteers and the team have been so brave in packing food packs and then delivering them

personally.  

As part of our networking we are working with Tower Hamlets volunteers to spread the support net wider. 

Naturally, we are taking advice on contact very seriously but it’s still deeply unnerving on an operational level. 

We all smile but we are all nervous and that’s a fact.

We are also taking local referrals so please do contact me if you need a food pack or know someone who does.

I have also taken the decision to use my #bookbikelondon programme for this purpose to drop off food packs and a book to recipients.

I’ve received nothing but positive messages to those who have received a book so I’ll continue to use my cycles. 

If I don’t get some cardio I’d go nuts anyway, so this is also very much a wellbeing thing.

I need a new one too, so if anyone can get me a massive discount then please ping me.  

Also, are there any medical friends who can offer succinct and practical advice to help us community volunteers try stay safe during these very testing times?  

I really don’t want to hear from doom mongers please. 

#coronachronicles #foodbank #coronavirus #thewanderinglondoner