Updates from Howden Helpers HQ!

To date the shopping & prescription teams have fulfilled over 500 orders! Now feels like the right time to publicly thank Jonathon and his team at Boots and Russell and his team at the Co-Op, they have been 100% supportive from day one, helping us to put in place processes that minimise footfall in both stores and reduce exposure for our volunteers. For those that aren't aware, Russell has allowed our shopping team access to the Co-Op at 6am, three times per week, which reduces the number of people that our volunteers come into contact with and the amount of time needed to fulfil orders. Likewise, Jonathon has made it possible for us to remotely submit a collated prescription request each day, himself and his team then prepare everything for pick up by our volunteers at an agreed time. We are in contact with many other community groups up and down the country and we know that many have not received the level of support that we have. On behalf of all of us THANK YOU to Jonathon & the team at Boots and Russell and the team at the Co-Op, you are all truly brilliant! 

The shopping team have had another busy week, with 50 orders fulfilled in total, 22 of these were on Saturday, which is the most on any day so far. The prescription team dealt with 39 requests, which also matches their previous busiest week.

Howden Helper Heroes this week are our Social Media/Comms team Gill Dixon Luke Daniel Thornhill and Sophie Ross-Briggs, they do a great job of getting relevant information onto the Howden Helper pages and their efforts this week have really made a difference to our Community Pantry initiative - this will be an ongoing so if you can donate food items or funds, please do via

This week our shopping team have fulfilled 41 shopping orders and our prescription team have collected and delivered 26 prescriptions. Prescription requests seem to have levelled out at around that number each week and the shopping order volumes continue to be manageable, with the option to scale up if necessary.

This week's Howden Helper Heroes are our delivery teams who are out there 5 days a week assisting our local traders and the community by providing a free delivery service - helping customers to stay at home and traders to continue trading. Val Heslop John Heslop John Prickett Ailleen Prickett Jo Webster Andy Ashton - and everyone else who has stepped in to help out - Thank you all so much.

Happy Easter Everyone! It's been different, but I hope you have still found ways to celebrate.

UPDATE 4, 5th April

As Week 2 comes to a close, we can report a steady but manageable increase in volumes.

Here are the numbers for week 2;
40 More households have registered to use the service (there are now 95 in total)
36 Shopping orders were placed and delivered (last week we dealt with 19)
40 Medicines have been picked up and delivered (last week we delivered 30)

Volunteers continue to register and there are now 174. This week a further 11 volunteers have been called upon, so in total 51 volunteers have helped over the first few weeks.

The *Howden Helper Heroes of the week* are definitely the call handlers. They have manned the phones for 2 weeks and the numbers only tell part of their story, they have all done so much more than just take orders. They have chatted, reassured, followed up. They have had endless patience and demonstrated so much caring for the people that have called. Massive thanks to Matthew Barras, lucy peet, Jane Wake and Debi Rotherforth - you are all outstanding humans!
Thank you all for your support.

UPDATE 3,   29th March

This seems like a good time to provide an update - although it feels like SO much longer than a week, we are now at the end of Week 1 in terms of Howden Helpers being up and running and offering our services to those in the community that need it. So, here are some Week 1 numbers:

55 People have registered to use HH services
19 People's shopping has been delivered by HH
30 People's medicines have been delivered by HH
163 Volunteers have been registered
40 Volunteers have been used to deliver leaflets; answer phones; shop and deliver, pick up & deliver medicines and support local traders with their deliveries - thank you all!

WE NEED COMPOST - to enable us to spread a little Easter cheer. We have been donated (thank you Howden Show & California Gardens) some plants that we would like to gift to some of the isolated & vulnerable in and around Howden.

In order to do this we need to be able to pot the plants in small plastic pots. Does anyone know anywhere that is selling compost? Do any of you have bags that are a quarter full that you would be happy to donate to the cause?

We only really have a couple of days to get this organised so if you know where we could buy compost today please shout up! Thanks in Advance!