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Community Support from the Horse & Jockey, Melling

During the pandemic, our beloved family-run pub The Horse & Jockey in Melling, Liverpool, became a community-run pub offering a vital lifeline to those who needed it most. Over the past year, we have convened 50 volunteers who have supplied food, emotional support and everyday helping hands to over 300 people. We are continuing to work hard to support the most vulnerable and wanted to share an insight into our hard work throughout the pandemic as well as highlight areas for additional support.

We have built a community which has produced flyers that have been sent to over 4,000 homes. The flyers highlight the local communication channels we’ve set up to enable our important work. We have specifically targeted those that the government identified to be most at risk of COVID-19 – the over-70s and clinically vulnerable. Many of the people who fall into these categories have been isolating and therefore unable to provide for themselves, as well as being at risk of severe loneliness. Our plan was to tackle these problems by providing continued and much needed support to those most-affected by the pandemic.

We worked with local businesses and the public to provide hot meals which are delivered to those in need every evening. We’re helping people to stay healthy by picking up their pharmacy prescriptions and delivering them to their door. Perhaps most crucially, we are combatting loneliness with our ‘listening ear’ initiative which sees our volunteers picking up the phone and giving a vital call to an ever-growing list of people. These calls are a chance to have a chat and brighten up the day of someone who is struggling through this challenging time.

Our group of 50 volunteers have supported over 300 people during the pandemic. We’ve used the pub to set up our Community Kitchen, which has allowed us to put over 15,000 meals on tables. Our JustGiving page, which has received almost £6,000 in donations to date, has allowed us to keep the Community Kitchen going throughout three lockdowns.

One of the key tasks throughout the pandemic has been responding and adapting to the various rules and regulations that have come into play during each lockdown, as well as the periods in between including the tier system and local lockdowns. The varying nature of each lockdown has meant that different issues have come to the fore across each lockdown. Through it all, the Community Kitchen has continued to support local families, with recent focus turning to ensuring school children didn’t go hungry during school holidays.

During the current lockdown, even as it winds down and we ease towards our own outdoor reopening, we are continuing to support our local community as we have throughout the pandemic while working with our network of volunteers to come up with new and innovative ways to provide support to those who need it most.

Support the Horse & Jockey

If you would like more information about the Horse & Jockey, visit their website: ​ mellingcommunityvolunteers.com

To donate to the Just Giving page, click here: Crowdfunding to Helping our local community Our focus is currently feeding the children in our community who need it most during the school holidays on JustGiving