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More than a year of community collaboration between Freemasons and Rotary Club members has come to an end with the closure of a Louth-based meals on Wheels service set up to help vulnerable people through the pandemic.
And to celebrate the contribution it made to helping communities, those involved gathered in Louth’s Cornmarket for a final time on Saturday June 12th.
The project was started at Easter 2020 by father and son coffee shop owners and Freemasons Mike and Jamie Bristow, and has delivered more than 11,000 meals to vulnerable people in Louth, Alford, Skegness, Spilsby, Horncastle, and villages in between.
The Bristows and their families spent about 2,500 hours preparing and cooking food for twice-weekly deliveries from family-owned Larders Coffee House in Little Butcher Lane in Louth, which would otherwise have been closed because of restrictions on the hospitality sector. From there food was delivered by Freemasons of the Free Wheelers motorcycle lodge and members of Skegness Rotary Club, who together volunteered to travel about 35,000 miles in all weathers to make sure the deliveries got through.
The project was co-ordinated by Phil Odling from Boston who said: “The decision to cease the meals service has not been taken lightly, but as lockdown eased diners were once again able to return to going about their everyday business, and once again visit family and friends. We hope that our service has been of help, bringing a ray of sunshine into what has been a very lonely and worrying time for many.”
Those involved included:
Freemasons: Mark Brown, Richard Simpson, Mike and Jamie Bristow, Adam Worthington, Matt Webb, Shailen Munnien, Martin Reeve, G Wilkinson, Ken Tempest, Tim Bird, Tony Marston, Chris Woods, Mark Gale, Dave Cartwright, Ken Bevis, Steve Anderson, Chris Jones, David Freeman, Roger Coo, Ian Anderson.
Round Table: Bob Green
Rotarians: Mike Hartley, Pay King, Patricia Lowe, John Thornley, Tony Tie, Sadesh Gungah, Martron Rawlinson, Crole Cameron, Andrew Dowling, Peter Jude, Debbie Koet, Andrew QUickfall, Rob Wilkinson, Simon York.
And the rest of the Larders Coffee House team including Angie, Hannah, and Bec, seen below with flowers given to them by programme co-ordinator Phil Odling, left, and PGM Dave Wheeler.
