Buckingham Group support during COVID-19
Buckingham Group and Feeding Coventry
Over the last few months, local communities have come together to ensure that those in need have received as much support as possible, to help them through these challenging times.
Food provision has been the highest need for many, from those that have been unable to leave their homes to purchase it themselves, to those whose financial circumstances have meant that purchasing food has been a struggle.
The Community Resilience Team have been supporting with the set up of the food hubs across the city supporting those in need. Unfortunately, Foleshill Community Centre who run a social supermarket and a food hub was broken into with thousands of pounds worth of food and equipment taken. The community centre, therefore, had to prioritise securing the building as quickly as possible with the limited funds they had available.
The Community Resilience Team reached out to Buckingham Group one of the city's developers who had previously offered support to the community to see if there was anything they could do to help. As part of their social value contribution to the community, Buckingham Group gladly offered to £600 contribution to the community centre to put towards them securing the building.
Rachael Land, Future Skills Support Project Manager from Buckingham Group shared "At Buckingham's we take great pride in supporting the communities in which we work and make it an essential part of our planning to get involved as much as possible, not only by financial contributions but also volunteering our time for local causes, supporting those who are interested in a career in construction via our apprenticeships and work placement commitments amongst other things. When we were made aware of the unfortunate break-in at Foleshill Foodbank during the midst of the Pandemic and the subsequent need for the Community Centre to replenish stock and upgrade security urgently, we and some of our supply chain, notably Aden's and Orton Electrical were keen to contribute. We recognise that the foodbanks across the City are a lifeline for many people not only during this difficult time but all through the year. and any part we can play to help we are happy to get involved".
Alongside this Buckingham group have now contributed a fantastic £1250 towards the summer holiday breakfast club which is running across the summer holidays. Each week breakfasts and activity packs will be provided to children who live in the city who are in families experiencing hardship this summer. The money contributed by Buckingham will enable 83 children in the city to receive this for the week.
Chair of Trustees for Feeding Coventry, Councillor Faye Abbott shared "The team at Feeding Coventry are extremely grateful for the support from Buckingham group during the pandemic, their donation following the break-in has helped us get the community centre secured with CCTV installed, and their donation towards the summer holiday program is helping us to deliver our target of 1500 packs of food and activities to families struggling during the summer holidays. "
Community-based food hubs have been providing around 1500 food parcels a week throughout the Covid-19 outbreak and will also be providing breakfast packs for children in need during the school holidays.