MORE than 600 people have responded to a call for volunteers to help vulnerable people in Dundee during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The “amazing” response has delighted Dundee Volunteer and Voluntary Action (DVVA) who made the call and is now placing volunteers with organisations across the city.

One of these is Feeling Strong, the city’s youth mental health charity, which at an emergency meeting on March 16 decided to radically change its work on a temporary basis so it could respond to the coronavirus crisis.

As a result, it was agreed the charity would deliver food and care packages to some of the city’s most vulnerable residents.

“We’ve never done food before but we’re now a bona-fide food bank and we’ve put out over 1000 bags over the last two and a half weeks,” said chief executive officer Brook Marshall. “It’s been an incredible challenge but I always say to concentrate on one impossible task at a time.

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“The demand is huge and is only going to get worse. We are going to have to work really hard to match the demands that come in but I am confident we can.”

He said they had so far been dealing with a “flood” of referrals from the city council, housing associations and individuals.

“I’m really proud we’ve managed to turn round requests in 24 hours when we get them,” said Marshall.

“We work across the whole city as we have stuck to our principle of universality. We’ve not turned away anyone so far.”

Donations of food are coming from supermarkets, charities and members of the community donating food and money.

“We managed to raise £2500 in one week. That is incredible and it’s all from the community,” he said.

“At some point we will go back to our core business but we are going to do this until we feel the crisis has subsided enough that we can step back and let existing charities do it.

“Those that do this kind of thing anyway are really struggling so we are glad we are here to help.”

Eric Knox, DVVA chief executive added: “There has been a huge amount of work done to keep people safe in a very short time and this has been achieved by everyone pulling together.”

DVVA said the need was great as a high number of inquiries on its information line related to food insecurity.

Nearly half (43%) were in relation to shopping/food supplies, 27% were in relation to prescription collection and 20% were about befriending and older people’s support.

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“Often inquiries are complex and need a joined-up approach,” said Anita Jamieson, DVVA volunteer and organisational development manager.

“One very frail lady had had a new freezer delivered but the company had failed to take away her old one and fit the new one. Her old freezer was broken and the food had defrosted, so needed to be thrown out. We arranged for uplift of the old freezer and for her new one to be fitted. We also arranged a food delivery to tide her over and put her in touch with local Timebank volunteers for future shopping needs. As well as this we discussed volunteer telephone befriending services she could access.

“This elderly woman was so delighted she told us she clapped for the volunteers on Thursday night.”

Jamieson added: “We know that this time can be unsettling for people and it can feel like it’s not clear what we can do to help. From delivering groceries to a vulnerable person or having a chat over the phone we know that volunteers can make a massive difference and we’ve been delighted to see how many Dundonians want to get involved.”

DVVA services, such as the Healthy Minds Network drop-ins, have moved online with the aim of helping people continue to feel connected and supported even though they are in lockdown. The organisation has also increased capacity to man phone lines for those who may be digitally excluded but need support and information.

The phone service Dial-OP offers an up-to-date list of local organisations and agencies that can help during the crisis. Anyone can phone the Dial-OP Helpline with queries about current services relating to their wellbeing including shopping, food provision, collecting prescriptions, befriending and morning calls.

The call handlers will provide organisations and the general public with the most up to date information and will signpost or arrange onward referral to the relevant services.

“When we had a vulnerable person call in looking for support for shopping he was given help from our Dial-OP operator hub volunteer coordinator to put in an order for Click and Collect,” explained Jamieson. “We then arranged for a community response volunteer to collect and deliver it to his door – a very happy customer.”

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