In the photo:
Some of the volunteer drivers at Rotherfield St Martin who have worked throughout the last lockdown to get our members to their medical appointments.
What did your volunteers do?
The last 12 months have been very uncertain and many older people in our area have been frightened having been told they were in the most vulnerable group for Covid infections. But despite this, they have had to go to medical appointments at hospitals in East Sussex and Kent.
Our volunteer drivers completed over 130 drives to medical appointments between June 2020 and May 2021, despite the pandemic. They also volunteered to take anyone in our village and surrounding area to have their Covid vaccinations, often at very short notice.
We are so lucky.
How did your volunteers make a difference?
Our volunteer drivers have willingly adapted to the pandemic, wearing face masks, and cleaning their cars after every drive.
So many people contact us to say it helped to have a friendly and reassuring driver bring them home safely. One driver even took just a bag into hospital for a man who had been admitted by ambulance.
For some people, a drive for a Covid vaccination has been the only journey they have made in a year. Our drivers are there when people are feeling their most vulnerable, sometimes having just received a devastating diagnosis. And throughout our drivers are reassuring, kind and patient.
