Teamwork Makes The Dream Work

Caring Coins Association was established on 6 April 2020 by local women Yvonne Campbell and Kerrie Havern as a direct response to the needs of local NHS workers in the frontline fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. We raised £1,300 from people dropping off their coins in a bucket as they passed our homes.

After communicating with the Emergency Department at Daisy Hill Hospital told us they needed something practical to help reduce the severe impact that COVID-19 was having on their mental health and wellbeing. We provided help in the form of an Alexa (to provide some music), coffee machines, snacks refreshments and personal hygiene products. We also gave a gift of ‘Heroes’ chocolates and personalised NHS bath bombs to every member of the ED department. Our strategy emerged from this response.

We became more aware of the great need among hundreds of families and children locally. Families were living in despair and poverty because of severe financial distress due to the loss of jobs or closure of businesses because of the pandemic. Families were forced to choose between food, heat or buying toys from Santa for Christmas 2020. Our response was socially innovative. We mobilised local communities to empower them to create solutions to the practical problems blighting their own communities.

Our strap line then became “Our community, our responsibility”. We shared our socially innovative best practice model in a “circle of learning” program funded by the Office of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Ireland. The socially innovative model was recognised in May 2021 by Newry, Mourne & Down District Council with our first award “fundraising and providing outstanding support to those in need in the community” which notes us as warriors of mental health.

At a time when the world stood still, we safely and successfully inspired a group of parents to raise over £38,000. Mothers and fathers, donning hi-vis vests, carry bright orange B&Q builders’ buckets, knocking every door in the Newry area and simply asking people for their jars of loose coins. It made Christmas 2020 brighter for over 500 families and gave our initial 20 volunteers a sense of purpose which they said helped them with their own struggles.