Locks Heath CommuniCare Association launch new minibus

On Monday 14th June at the Sarisbury Green Monday Lunch Club the Locks

Heath CommuniCare Association launched their new minibus.

After

several years of hard fundraising activity and with the help of grants of £5K from Hampshire County Council and £2K

from Fareham Borough Council, CommuniCare

raised a grand total of £33,750 to buy their much-needed new bus.

For

forty-six years CommuniCare has been providing a transport service for needy

people who don’t qualify for help by statutory bodies. CommuniCare provide more than just a

means of transport - the minibus gives more vulnerable members of

the community a frequent link to the outside world. 

The

new 13-seater minibus with a passenger lift for disabled residents will provide a

lifeline for the elderly and infirm in the Western Wards.

The

minibus runs approximately 750 journeys per year, taking people to weekly lunch

clubs at the Sarisbury Green Community Centre and Warsash Victory Hall, on

shopping trips to the Locks Heath, Fareham and Whiteley shopping centres. As well as this, over the last year a team of CommuniCare volunteer 'taxis' took 577 people to hospital and 698 to their local GP surgery or medical centre.

The CommuniCare

Association doesn’t

only provide transport facilities. The 115 local volunteers in the charity also organise Lunch Clubs twice a

week and run the Coffee Shop at the Lockswood Centre.

Chairman

of the charity, Philip Lockwood, said:

“Our

passengers are delighted with the new minibus and so are our volunteer drivers

and escorts who are being trained to MiDAS standards.  The internal passenger lift on the mini-bus will make it far

easier for people who use wheelchairs or who have walking difficulties to use

our service.  CommuniCare could not

operate without the unsung local volunteers behind the scenes that make it

happen; we are always in need of more volunteers.  We are also grateful to Hampshire County Council and Fareham

Borough Council for their charitable grant”.

If you have some time to spare CommuniCare are looking for volunteers

to help with lunch clubs, driving Lunch Club members by car; driving people to doctor’s surgeries and hospitals, co-ordinating by telephone for the doctor and hospital requirements, driving the minibus, escorting people on the minibus, helping in the coffee shop.

If you would like to

help telephone CommuniCare on 01489 559697 or call in at the coffee shop in the

Lockswood Day Care Centre.