Thank you, Redbridge – One year since pandemic declared

Exactly one year since the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, Cllr Jas Athwal, Leader of Redbridge Council, has shared a personal message of hope and renewal and thanked our key workers and local people for their resilience, compassion, bravery and dedication.

When things got tough, local communities came together to keep Redbridge safe. When the council asked for volunteers, more than 600 people volunteered with the Redbridge Volunteer Centre to support the COVID response. In addition, there were thousands of people who volunteered informally in their local community, helping out friends, neighbours and local social action groups to help those most in need. More than 2,000 people joined the Redbridge Joins Together Facebook page to help, and seek help, from their neighbours. 

Healthcare workers continued to look after us, and schools remained open for vulnerable children and the children of key workers. Waste collection crews continued to wake up at the crack of dawn to collect rubbish and keep the streets clean, while children in the borough thanked them and other key workers by drawing and displaying rainbows in their windows.

The Council delivered many new services and new ways of supporting local residents such as:

• Delivering 1,700 packed lunches to vulnerable children
• Supporting 157 rough sleepers off the streets
• Signing up 654 volunteers
• Facilitating 200 pharmacy pickups
• Delivering 801 food parcels
• Making 19,486 calls to residents
• Sourcing 4.25m items of PPE
• Keeping 50 parks and open spaces open safely

More recently, the council has worked with the NHS to ensure our vaccination programme has been a great success, with almost 85,000 people in Redbridge having taken the first dose, while more than 6,000 have already had their second dose.

Thanking all Redbridge people, the Leader of Redbridge Council, Cllr Jas Athwal, commented:

“We have each endured an incredibly difficult year, families across our borough have lost loved ones and we have all had to find new ways of living, working and looking after those we care about. Seeing the resilience and compassion shown by my neighbours throughout the last year has been truly inspiring and I have never felt prouder to lead our local council.

“Local people have gone out of their way to support their neighbours, delivering food and medicine, donating to food banks, and volunteering. Our frontline heroes in the NHS, supermarkets, schools and other key service areas have shown great bravery, selflessness and dedication, and I will be forever grateful to them all.

“As the vaccine rolls out across Redbridge and with every jab our community becomes a little safer, there is a light finally at the end of the tunnel, and as spring blooms so does my hope for the future. In Redbridge we came together as one community, we looked after one another, sacrificed our normal way of living to protect our loved ones and, together, we are continuing to overcome this terrible pandemic. Thank you for playing your part, stopping the spread of the virus, and making Redbridge safer for all of our families.”

 

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