There is a world-wide saying “where there is a need - there is a Lion” and to prove the point, the Beccles Lions have not let the present unpleasant difficulties stand in the way of them providing assistance to the local community when less fortunate and disadvantaged people reach out for their help.
Our Welfare Team has continued on throughout the last few months, bringing smiles to those desperate for help not available elsewhere and in return getting really gratifying heartfelt thanks.
As well as retaining a charity fund to use where necessary, Lions are expert facilitators. We maintain a storage facility for donated gifts (often from bereaved families), of many specialised furniture items - such as riser chairs and electrically operated beds, plus electric mobility scooters and indeed unwanted white goods. This enables us to help those desperate in our Community within a very short period of time of a request being received.
We also work actively with other local charities - such as Beccles Rotary Club the Beccles Jubilee Trust and Beccles Helping Hands to offer a co-ordinated response to the larger requests for help.
Cases in point include supporting the Community centre at St Lukes Church who spent the recent lockdown storing and distributing food parcels within the Community and who were “running out of space” due to old furniture taking up too much room. We acted with Beccles Rotary to provide cash which, with other donations enabled the Church to buy modern fold up tables and chairs and releasing valuable space for their important food parcel project.
Fran Tuck from St Lukes with the new folding chairs (most in their rack) and one of the folding tables.
An individual approached the us for help as, due to restricted mobility, she was in urgent need of a Riser Chair and a Mobility Scooter. We had a Mobility Scooter donated from the previous Convent at Ditchingham which, with new batteries was ideal and in conjunction with both the Beccles Rotary Club and the Beccles Jubilee Trust provided the £1200 necessary to purchase the Riser Chair.
Other items supplied during the last few months include several lots of curtains, two lots of carpets, an electric bed, a settee, a fridge and a freezer, another electric scooter and members also cleared the garden for a gentleman who wanted it tidied to enable him to invite his Grandchildren to see him during social distancing.
Unfortunately though, like most other Charitable fund raising organisations the Covid Pandemic is giving The Beccles & District Lions Club a difficult time, with our usual fundraising capability curtailed by both social distancing difficulties within our community and indeed with many of our Members being subject to shielding.
In spite of the difficulties though, we, the Beccles & District Lions Club and the other local charitable organisations - in common with the NHS are definitely ‘open for business’.