Winter! Yes, seriously – with less than 100 days until Christmas (yes, I said it!), and a significant drop in temperature over the last few days, we sadly need to start thinking about the winter months and the challenges that it is undoubtedly going to bring to many. Winter is always challenging, particularly for our older and more frail members of the community, but this year, we cannot fail to hear about the doom and gloom attached to the cost of living crisis.
Hard as it is, here are Communities Together East Anglia, where possible, we want to turn this into a positive, and work with our communities to support our most vulnerable – to ensure that there are safe warm spaces where people can gather, meet new friends and share positive conversations. We want to work with our partners and friends across the voluntary sector to support people to access cost effective ways of heating and eating, and most of all, we want everyone to know that they are not alone.
Our Wise Up for Winter “badge” will be featuring on many of our social media posts, flyers and communications over the next few months, and will include simple, cost effective recipe ideas, top tips of saving the pennies and keeping costs down, and for a bit of fun, we would love as many people as possible to learn to knit – a great way to keep your hands busy and warm, a great intergenerational activity that can be taken with you, wherever you go, and perhaps you could even knit a hat or twiddlemuff or three! We may even be able to include some of these into our limited number of Winter Warmth packs that we are going to be putting together to send out to some of our most vulnerable community members.
If you know of a business who may like to donate something nice and warm and cosy (blankets, hats, handwarmers, heat bags….) then please get in touch with our team, who will be delighted to hear from you!
As always, thanks for reading and keep warm, connected and safe.
Jo (Chief Executive)