Member Article

Bedford Charity Among The First To Benefit From Tesco’s £500 COVID-19 Community Fund

A Bedford charity which supports autistic people has become one of the first in the area to benefit from a £500 Tesco grant, part of the retailer’s £52million package of support for local communities hit by the lockdown.

Earlier this month, Tesco’s CEO Dave Lewis outlined the retailer’s plans to provide more than £52m to local communities following the Covid 19 outbreak, continuing to give extra food and funding for FareShare, the Trussell Trust, donations of food for Salute the NHS, support for the British Red Cross and National Emergencies Trust, and a Bags of Help COVID-19 Community Fund, to support as many groups as possible with grants of £500.

Making full use of the grant, Bedford-based charity Autism Bedfordshire, has put the extra funding towards introducing online social sessions and resources to reduce social isolation for its members.

The local charity supports hundreds of autistic children and adults across Bedfordshire. In addition to providing online sessions to build social skills, the charity also distributes sensory play kits to relieve stress and stimulate autistic children.

Gill Christmas, Funding Manager at Autism Bedfordshire, said: “While adapting to the ‘new normal’ is a challenging time for everyone, this change is extremely difficult for the people we support.

“Because autism affects the way people relate to the world, any changes in routine can be extremely hard to cope with. Thanks to the grant from Tesco, we’ve been able to continue helping the people that need us, and for that, we are extremely grateful.”

Gill continued: “It’s wonderful to see how much our adapted services are benefitting the people we support. The positive feedback we’ve received from families has been so heart-warming and it shows the very real difference we are making to these people’s lives.”

Keith Jackson, Communications Manager for Tesco in East of England, said: “We’re doing everything we can to provide support for all at this difficult time and hopefully the £500 Bags of Help grant will go some way to help those groups still committed to helping others during this uncertain time.”

Through distribution partners, FareShare and Groundwork, local groups across the country are dedicated to ensuring that the most vulnerable within our communities are supplied with essentials even if they cannot leave home.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Katie Rattigan .