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Cyprus Helpers COVID-19: The 2,000-volunteer initiative that helps the needy (photos)

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Cyprus Helpers COVID-19 is a group of volunteers who have come together to help those in need impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

In under three weeks 2,000 volunteer members (and growing daily) have come together from all over Cyprus to offer help to those who need it.

The team has partnered with establishments who prepare cooked meals and food boxes, organisations and businesses providing them with supplies, and more recently they have started to partner with local municipalities to support them in meeting requests that municipalities receive from the public.

The Helpers are now calling for more establishments to volunteer to help them prepare meals and food boxes in each district to meet the requests flooding in, and more volunteer helpers to help swiftly action such requests.

They urge anyone who needs help or can volunteer to join the Cyprus Helpers COVID-19 group where they can contact the administration or coordinators (in private) to make a request or an offer.

As a volunteer group, the Helpers ask for food and supplies donations which can be dropped off at collection points publicised on the group’s Facebook page.

They have also introduced an new initiative whereby people can donate their supermarket bonus points to one central number so that the Helpers can use them to purchase food and other essentials for those in need.

“We have volunteer helpers collecting and making deliveries, packing food boxes and even making masks!” a founding member told in-cyprus

“What is so inspirational and makes it all worthwhile are the smiles on peoples faces when they receive aid and the warm feeling everyone in the group gets when we receive the wonderful messages of thank you,” he said.

He shared the story of one urgent request they received to pick up medication for an elderly person desperately in need.

“Within minutes of receiving the request one of our volunteer motorbike couriers was dispatched.”

And this was the feedback to the help provided by the Helpers to the elderly man: “Dad’s infection has been ‘nipped in the bud’ because of this site and the immediate help we got. This prevented the infection going to his brain. If he had not got this medication yesterday, I’m SURE he would have ended up in hospital, disorientated, confused and worse still, alone. This one little bit of help has done so much more… It’s saved €1000’s, a hospital bed, nurses and doctors time, and that bed did not need to be taken up by something preventable. This actually could have saved his life. Thank you once again for this immediate response.”

 Another recent request was to deliver a much needed phone and other essentials to a patient who had been transferred alone from Paphos to a Limassol hospital.

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