L-R: Tom Williams and Richard Scandrett with the donations of tea, coffee and biscuits
Two West Midlands businesses have joined forces to help support under-pressure NHS workers by collecting over 10,000 donations of bottled water, coffee, tea and biscuits.
Bosses at Drain Doctor Plumbing and Coinadrink jumped in to help when they saw an appeal by Hampers for Heroes, a community enterprise which helps key workers by delivering hampers of treats and wellbeing items.
Hampers for Heroes had received a request from ICU doctors, who were looking for coffee, toiletries and other essentials, and shared it on social media to gather support.
When Richard Scandrett, Director at Drain Doctor Plumbing in Burntwood, and Tom Williams, sales and marketing manager at Coinadrink in Walsall, saw it, they both knew they had to help.
Richard rallied support from clients and managed to secure a donation of bottled water from the Roxane bottling plant in Fradley, Staffordshire.
Tom immediately offered to donate individual sachets of tea and coffee, amounting to 5,000 hot drinks in total, and has pledged ongoing support.
Richard said: “When I saw the appeal I had to help. I knew the health staff would be stretched but I was blissfully unaware of what was really going on. They wanted refreshments, snacks and toiletries. I just thought ‘how can I get involved?’.
“I contacted customers to see if anyone could help. Roxane was great and donated around 5,000 bottles of water.
“I ended up doing three runs, taking pallets to Hampers for Heroes, and on the same day I took a pallet to Walsall Manor Hospital.”
Meanwhile, Tom gathered the huge donation of tea and coffee and also supplied 2,000 packets of biscuits at cost price for Richard and Alex Murray, of The Best Of Walsall, to donate.
Tom said: “As local businesses we just wanted to do whatever we could to help.”
Tom had already offered support to staff at Walsall Manor, supplying drinks vending machines free of charge last year and he said he would be making a monthly donation to Hampers for Heroes.
“We’ll supply them with tea and coffee, or whatever is needed,” he said. “We want to support the NHS and other key workers as much as we can.”
Tom said Coinadrink would also be supplying a drinks vending machine to a new vaccine centre in the Saddlers Centre in Walsall so that staff have access to hot drinks during long shifts.
Victoria Hanson, Founder of Hampers for Heroes, said she was grateful for their help.
“We have had a great response from businesses,” she said. “These donations of coffee, tea, biscuits and water all helped us stock hampers to help the ICU workers who are working so hard at the moment. It’s great for them to know the community is behind them.”
To donate to Hampers for Heroes, visit https://hampersforheroes.net/donate/.
