Special to 1812Blockhouse
Publisher’s Note: Over the last year, we have been happy to share posts from Mansfield’s Sister City, Mansfield, England, in the county of Nottinghamshire, through our relationship with the Mansfield and Ashfield News-Journal. We are posting these to acquaint our readers with how the coronavirus is impacting those in other parts of the world and, in particular, in a city with which we have a close bond. This story was posted on Monday in the Mansfield and Ashfield News-Journal:
The Mayor of Mansfield, Andy Abrahams, has spoken of how proud he is of the authority’s response to helping vulnerable residents and people in need during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Helping vulnerable people has been a major part of the council’s work over the past year and the way our officers have gone above and beyond their duties has been amazing,” said the mayor.
“We put out an appeal to council staff for items like tins of ham and corn beef, toiletries, clothes for children and young adults, and for children’s books to help the growing number in this district facing hardship as a result of the pandemic.
“Within days we had dozens of donations from officers and their friends and neighbours plus offers to volunteer. It makes me proud that we have on the council payroll so many people who genuinely care and want to help.”
Among the council staff who reached out to help was business transformation officer Julie Bodin, who not only donated books and children’s clothes herself but also collected donations from her friends and neighbours.
She said the council appeal from chief executive Hayley Barsby for more donations of food, children’s clothes and books ‘really hit home’.
“We immediately went through my children’s books and clothes to see what we no longer needed. I live in a great community so I put a message into our group chat asking if anyone would like to donate any food or clothing.
“The response was absolutely brilliant. I ended up taking a car full of donations to the Civic Centre, which was wonderful.”
The mayor added: “Only a couple of weeks ago, we had a gentleman approach the council who was obviously in need of support and in clear distress, with hardly any money left and virtually no food.
“Council officers really persevered and made the effort to reach out to him and show him that we were there to help. We managed to get a supermarket voucher to him to help him buy some food while pointing him in the direction of various avenues of support.
“This was just one incident but there are dozens of similar cases where a timely and sympathetic response by our council officers has made a real difference.
“Mostly it goes unnoticed and the council doesn’t usually shine the spotlight on the efforts of its own officers because many would feel that it was just part of their job.
“But I feel they deserve some public credit and recognition for their dedicated and caring work over the past very challenging months during which the scale of hardship has increased considerably.”
Original post can be read here.
Photo: Creative Commons License
