The Final Piece In The Jigsaw For Fighting COVID-19?
In Alford, a small Lincolnshire town 11 miles away from Skegness, a local community have been fighting back against COVID-19.
The ‘Alford Hub’, a support network with 90 volunteers, have been offering socially distant befriending, prescription delivery and other vital support to local people in Alford ever since the Coronavirus pandemic transformed our everyday lives in March.
However, there was one final piece of support in their missing, Lynette Pryke, the Alford Hub Co-ordinator, explained:
“Although we had been supporting people with practical issues that had arisen because of COVID, we’d been getting a lot of questions about money, Universal Credit and entitlements.”
“With the local Citizen’s Advice closed, we didn’t know how to how to signpost those in need – or any information that could help them with the money issues many were experiencing”
After herself attending a COVID Cash Course, Lynette arranged a series of evening COVID Cash Recovery webinars, covering the financial problems experienced by people in Alford.
Over September, nearly 40 volunteers, local organisations, and financially vulnerable individuals attended the webinars – helping support those struggling with bills, Universal Credit, entitlements, budgeting and much more.
“We had an individual, Daniel*, who was really struggling from the support available for the self- employed… he had some really difficult months before attending the course” says Lynette.
“COVID Cash Recovery helped him realise that despite being self-employed, he was actually entitled to Universal Credit support, and he is now doing much better financially”
Daniel is one of the estimated 30,000 individuals COVID Cash Recovery has either helped directly or indirectly, through someone attending the course. He shows that either a small piece of information, or a short conversation, can significantly change the direction of someone’s life. COVID Cash Recovery helps increase the amount of those small moments.
Daniel* - pseudonym
