Group delivers 10,000 meals during COVID-19 pandemic

Corcrain Redmanville Empowerment Advocacy Training and Education, or CREATE, has been at the forefront of helping those in need.

Despite the challenges of lockdown and the perils of the virus, Jordon Russell from CREATE said there have been positives from the past year, including a renewed drive to help all in the community.

Jordon said: “During the first lockdown, as a community group, we very early on put our ideas together with Edgstarstown Residents’ Association to deliver some hampers to the vulnerable and elderly.

“This started off as a one-off delivery, however, it wasn’t long before we saw an increasing demand to offer more help and support.

“We then started delivering hot meals in the community twice a week. This service amassed over 10,000 meals during lockdown.

“Lockdown brought out the best in communities. To see the smiles on people’s faces when an item was dropped at the door was just amazing. To us, this is what community spirit should look like all year round and not just during a pandemic.

“We will be forever grateful for the help and support we got from other places such as, the Roadhouse Chippy, the Portadown Wellness Centre, Ellie Moe’s and many more.

“Lockdown has proved to be very difficult for everybody. However, there was a silver lining and this was to be able to meet and greet many more residents who live in the area. Seeing some faces we hadn’t seen in years.

“The past year has been a very challenging one - to see some people who have been life long residents battle Covid was extremely scary.

“However, it has given the group a new drive to try and help impact and improve the lives of as many people as possible.”

-

-

Bleach squirted over vehicles at an NI Tesco car park Read full story here

-

-

Editor’s Message:

Thank you for reading this article. We’re more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by Coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

Please consider purchasing a copy of the paper. You can also support trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription of the News Letter.