HCHA Chief Executive, Christopher Holley and our Board wish to say a huge thank you to the many individuals, volunteers and organisations who have worked tirelessly and selflessly to support our elderly and vulnerable tenants in these challenging and unprecedented times of the Covid-19 pandemic. We wanted to especially recognise the outstanding support our tenants have received from two local organisations by presenting them with the HCHA Community Star Award:-
London Community Kitchen Harrow is a major food bank hub set up in partnership with Harrow Council, they support residents facing food insecurity in the borough. They have delivered food to Wolstenholme tenants every week for the past 4 months during Covid-19 lockdown.
Taz Khan (pictured right) who received the award on behalf of the London Community Kitchen said, ‘We feel very privileged to be a small part of the mechanism to help elderly and vulnerable people in Harrow, knowing that we could have saved lives by our work makes it all worthwhile.’
Maureen Wallace, scheme manager at Wolstenholme sheltered scheme added, ‘The wonderful team of people, all volunteers at London Community Kitchen have excelled beyond belief.By providing this wonderful service to our tenants it has given great comfort to them during this difficult situation, it has also eliminated a massive risk of transmitting Covid-19 within our scheme as tenants have not needed to take unnecessary risks going out. The tenants would like to say to Taz, Hassiba, Kesar, Fatima, Mitchell and Vivien, thank you for being there when needed it. The compassion they have shown to the community of Harrow has been an inspiration to us all.’
Helping Hands, Harrow Mosque
Helping Hands Coordinator Ashfaq Ahmed said, ‘In early March 2020 Harrow Mosque members decided to mobilise our volunteer base to support a community led initiative named Helping Hands to help those who are elderly and isolating due to Covid-19. We have 40 volunteers who give their time and energy to do shopping and collect medicines for those who have been unable to visit the shops themselves or who do not have family nearby to help them. Harrow Council sends us referrals, including some to assist the scheme managers at Paxfold House with their vulnerable tenants. So far we have visited Paxfold weekly for the past four months averaging 5-6 shopping lists per week. Our volunteers have done over 70 individual shopping lists. Volunteers Haseeb Hashmi and Imran Malik have regularly provided assistance to Paxfold tenants.’
HCHA CEO Christopher Holley said, ‘It was a pleasure to present the awards and small donations to two local organisations who have done so much to support and help our tenants during the pandemic. I passed on the thanks of the Board, staff and tenants to an amazing and diverse group of active volunteers.
Pictured: Voluteer Haseeb Hashmi recieves the award on behalf of Helping Hands