‘Hearts of gold’
We have been working with the CWU in Greater Manchester, where colleagues have been driving a fantastic initiative supporting the food banks around the city.
NHS staff have thanked Manchester Mail Centre colleagues for their ‘kindness and generosity’ for special deliveries of snacks, chocolates, soft drinks and sweets over the past few weeks.
Wythenshawe, Salford Royal, North Manchester and Royal Oldham hospitals have received the treats from the team at Manchester Mail Centre, who have temporarily diverted Welfare Fund gym membership contributions to the women and men on the NHS frontline.
Postman and area processing rep, Peter Clarke, said: ‘Around 500 colleagues here belong to the mail centre gym and, because it’s been closed during the pandemic, we thought, instead of stopping our contributions, we’d use the money to help NHS staff.
‘The idea for this came from one of the gym instructors who works at the mail centre, Lee Grimshaw, and when this was agreed, we got in touch with the local hospitals to organise the drop-offs.’
As well as the various snacks and soft drinks, NHS staff also asked for hand moisturising creams. ‘The nurses told us that they really need this because of the effect of the sanitiser they have to use all the time,’ said Peter.
‘We’ve delivered to four hospitals so far and we’re hoping to do more in the next couple of weeks.’
Postman, Chris Bragg, took the delivery duty to his local hospital, North Manchester, and waiting to help unload his van when he arrived was his own next-door neighbour, Denise Brighton, who works there as a nurse.
‘There was plenty for everyone and the Royal Mail workers have got hearts of gold,’ said Denise. ‘They’re so generous and kind and everything was really appreciated by all of us.
‘And it was very thoughtful of them to send us all the hand cream as well – one thing we all certainly do need here.’
Chris said that the team were ‘all really pleased to help in any way we could. Our hospitals have helped us and our families so much all our lives and we wanted to give something back for everything they’ve done for us.’
