Caithness Community Connections provide point of contact
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More than 150 meals a week have been delivered to people along the east coast of the county thanks to volunteers from Caithness Community Connections.
The group, which recently celebrated its first birthday, is the agreed point of contact for anyone in the Lybster and Clyth area needing assistance with shopping or picking up prescriptions during the lockdown.
It is also continuing to provide crafting and other activities for the Thrumster and Lybster youth clubs as well as keeping members of the crofters' craft group busy.
Explaining the idea behind Caithness Community Connections – set up in January 2019 – one of the co-ordinators, Heather Urquhart, said: "We set up really to run activities for people down the east coast of Caithness in places as close to them as possible."
Since then they have set up youth clubs in Lybster and Thrumster, along with delivering messy play events along the coast for the under-fives, and established a popular craft group meeting weekly as far as Berriedale.
With the charity now having a base at Southend, Lybster, it has been able to play a vital role helping the community during the coronavirus crisis.
Heather said: "We were asked if we would cover the area for Lybster and Clyth. We are doing pretty much the same as everybody else – collecting prescriptions and doing hot meals on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
"We have delivered over 150 meals a week – just over 50 a day."
The group would not have been able to take on this role without the funding that was provided by Latheron, Lybster and Clyth Community Council, the SSE Beatrice Caithness Fund and the North Highland Initiative.
At the beginning of the pandemic the group started by handing out snack boxes from the village hall in Lybster along with some other much-needed items.
"When there was a huge toilet roll shortage we gave out toilet rolls we had left over from making snowmen at Christmas, as well as nappies we had got from Tesco previously," Heather said.
Crafts boxes were also given out to the youth club members in Thrumster and Lybster along with ideas for activities the children could do at home.
"It is something nice to do in among all of this," Heather said.
Caithness Community Connection volunteers are helping people anyway they can – they came to the assistance of one local woman whose vacuum cleaner broke just before the lockdown by sourcing a replacement through Facebook.
"It's the first time I have every washed down a Hoover," Heather quipped.
At Easter more than 70 small eggs were delivered in Thrumster and Lybster, while the craft group knitted chicks to put some eggs in which were gifted to the residents of Pulteney House care home in Wick.
Bread deliveries were made thanks to a donation from Caithness Foodbank and there are still plans to make a bread pudding.
Welfare checks have also been done for people whose relatives live in the south. Anyone else looking for help can contact the coordinator by calling 07885295264.
In addition the group has shared posts on its Facebook page from individuals and businesses able to provide assistance locally, including times when the Portland Hotel, Lybster, and the Bay, Dunbeath, are open for takeaways.
Heather added: "Donald Henderson at the shop in Lybster will deliver from Dunbeath to Clyth which is obviously a big help to folk."
Meanwhile, the crofters' craft group is continuing during lockdown to make poppies for local remembrance displays and granny crochet squares for a special Christmas tree.
If anyone wants to join in the crafting projects they are welcome to get in touch with the group and make use of the large donation of wool received before the lockdown.
