Saints Foundation were honoured to welcome HRH The Countess of Wessex to support two of the valuable initiatives that it has been delivering during the period of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Her Royal Highness joined Saints Foundation staff to volunteer at FareShare Southern Central’s food distribution centre in Totton, as well as deliver medication to one of the charity’s older participants.
After picking and packing food for onward distribution into the local community alongside Saints Foundation volunteers, The Countess delivered a prescription to Sally, a beneficiary of the Prescription Delivery Service, which has supported more 1,000 people in recent weeks.
The resident of Kerrigan Court in Portswood is currently unable to collect her own prescription due to the coronavirus outbreak, relying on Saints Foundation to deliver her medication.
The Countess also met Paul Hedges, Health Projects Manager for the charity, who outlined their normal work with older adults in the city, which involves participants like Sally taking part in physical fitness sessions for her age group. In the absence of the ability to run those sessions, exercise workbooks have been provided to participants, providing older people with an effective way to keep active during lockdown, whilst many have also had regular phone calls from Saints Foundation staff.
Greg Baker, Head of Saints Foundation, was thrilled to be able to have an opportunity to highlight the good work the charity has done over the past three months.
He remarked: “It was a true honour to welcome Her Royal Highness to support two of the programmes that we are delivering to support individuals across the local community during the current pandemic.
“We hope that our work with both FareShare and with Southampton City Council and the NHS’ Clinical Commissioning Group on the Prescription Delivery Service has been really beneficial to the city and sharing that with The Countess is a real privilege.
Greg Baker
The countess was incredibly gracious, and we hope she learned a lot about our work from her visit
Head of saints foundation
Saints Foundation has been at the forefront of the club’s support for individuals and communities across the city. In addition to those initiatives outlined above, they have also been hard at work with projects such as the Saints Personal Development Programme and delivering more than 9,000 units of food and drink to NHS staff at four sites in the city.
To find out more about their work, visit southamptonfc.com/saints-foundation.