Hertfordshire Age UK

Local News

How local businesses are helping a local charity!

COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on Age UK Hertfordshire’s services. They are a local charity that supports over 10,000 older people each year, to alleviate loneliness and isolation, tackle poverty and build resilience within communities across Hertfordshire. “It’s been an incredibly busy and challenging few months for Age UK Hertfordshire. We’ve had to swiftly restructure our services and develop new ways of working to ensure that we continue to support the most vulnerable older people in Hertfordshire,” says their Director of Operations, Mark Hanna. “In the initial weeks of COVID-19 our focus was on ensuring that our most vulnerable clients had food, support and any essential practical assistance. In April alone, our Information & Advice line received nearly 5,000 enquiries - and we’ve continued to be extremely busy. Many of our clients already felt socially isolated and lonely, and the COVID-19 lockdown has accentuated that feeling so we need to do all we can to ensure we are here if they need us.”

Deborah Paniagua, the charities’ CEO agrees, “We’ve been overwhelmed by the support of people in Hertfordshire – donating everything from food to face masks for our food parcels and ‘comfort bags’ and from jigsaws to jotters for our ‘activity packs’. Local businesses have been donating too, including The Haberdashery in Hitchin. They provided a mountain of yarn and knitting needles to add to our comfort parcels.” Owner of The Haberdashery, Kim Keeping, said “I love the work that Age UK Hertfordshire do and we might all need their services one day. We may be lucky enough to have our partner still with us but many are not that fortunate, so to do the smallest thing to help a big cause feels great. By sourcing yarn and needles to help older people in our community keep occupied during this weird time puts a massive smile on my face.” Age UK Hertfordshire would like to thank everybody who has helped them continue helping older people throughout this time. Deborah Paniagua adds, “We’ve been really delighted and humbled by the support from the local community. This is such a difficult time for everyone – but particularly for our older, vulnerable clients. We really need your support to help them.” They still need more help – They’re fundraising to cover the costs of the parcels, packages and changes they are having to make to their services. Details of this can be found on their website www.ageuk.org.uk/hertfordshire or by emailing

communications@ageukherts.org.uk