Throughout the COVID-19 outbreak the team at Vine Community and Vine Connect have been giving back to the community in East Village and Newham. Together with their group of volunteers the team have rallied together to ensure residents are safe and have everything they need.

Vine Community was created by David and Esana just over eight years ago in order to support people within local communities through conversation, whilst Vine Connect was created last year in response to the needs of young people living locally. Now living in East Village, we caught up with them find out more about their volunteer work and how they have continued during the coronavirus outbreak.

Esana said: “One of our aims since the start of the pandemic has been to do what we can by providing for vulnerable East Village and Newham residents. We have used money that was raised by ourselves and others within our network to go out and buy food supplies for people in the local community as well as offered to help with urgent utility bills such as gas and electric that needed paying as many people have lost their main source of income.

“We haven’t been alone in the mission we’ve been on though; other local residents have also joined in with the volunteer work. The message of the mission we have been on has spread purely through word of mouth and our involvement with the East Village and other support network. We now have around 20 or so different village and Newham residents who have supported with finances, purchasing and packaging up shopping and various drop off throughout this crucial period. It’s been great to see the community come together to help others out in a time of need.

“Of course, for the safety of other village residents and ourselves we have ensured that we’ve worn PPE and dropped packages off at doorsteps to make sure we’re following social distancing guidelines.”

Vine Connect’s main work is based around supporting young people into employment, education and entrepreneurship. This is done through weekly drop in sessions but these have since moved to online mentoring and phone calls during the outbreak. To find out more about Vine Connect and the work they do please visit their website – www.vineconnect.co.uk