BEACON staff can’t deliver their newspaper to homes during the Covid-19 lock down, but Eastern Bay Villages can.
The community networking organisation founded by Ruth Gerzon is breaking the boredom for its members during the lockdown, by distributing newspapers, magazines, crossword books and friendly faces. Now, extra funding from BayTrust has allowed it to reach out to others in the community.
Ms Gerzon said most of their members were in the over-70 age group most vulnerable to Covid-19.
“We have been deemed an essential service. We are helping to making sure people can stay at home. Thanks to BayTrust we are now able to help other members of the community.”
She said whether people needed shopping done, medicines collected, or just a friendly face or a phone call, their staff and adult volunteers were happy to provide it, and now people didn’t need to be a member.
“We started last week, putting out flyers and visiting units for seniors in Whakatane and Edgecumbe, giving out fruit and Easter eggs. The main thing we are finding is that people are bored.
“A lot of older people are not online, so there’s not much for them to do.
“We have been collecting fruit from our gardens, people have donated books and magazines and thanks to Harry from Hello Banana we have lots of crossword puzzle books and we are taking them around to people.”
Jo Tahuri works for Eastern Bay Villages in the position of pou arahe, co-ordinating volunteers and making deliveries in the Whakatane district. She is helped by Paula Hocken in Edgecumbe, Honey Thrupp in Taneatua and Ms Gerzon in Ohope.
Ms Tahuri said they had so many requests for the Beacon, which is still in shops on Wednesdays and Fridays but due to Covid -19 restrictions is not allowed to be delivered to homes during lockdown, they were buying up any unsold copies they could find in the shops and distributing them.
She said for this week’s issue on Wednesday and Friday they had 170 orders.
“Older people really miss getting their Beacon.
She said the dynamics had changed since the lockdown started.
“During the first couple of weeks people were reluctant to ask for help, as many older people can be and just trying to be careful and protect themselves. These last two weeks, people are really bored and craving company.”
Ms Gerzon said another way the group was tackling the boredom and isolation was by trialling Zoom coffee mornings.
“We normally have twice-weekly coffee mornings, so we are replacing these using Zoom. Apparently, you can take part in this just with a phone, so it doesn’t matter if you are not online.”
Ms Gerzon said the Eastern Bay Villages group was growing and was in need of more volunteers.
“All our staff and volunteers have to be police background checked and reference checked.”
Anyone who is over 70 or in poor health wanting Eastern Bay Villages to help brighten their day or would like to become a volunteer can make contact by phoning 0800 EBV 2020 (0800 3282020),or email easternbayvillages@gmail.com or phone or text 020 41615887.