Sketty Online is 4 Today!

Well well well... we're four years old today!

When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit, many communities were caught off guard, and Sketty was no exception. Like many others, we watched in horror as the situation in Italy worsened and we knew that we had to prepare ourselves for what could come next. With the possibility of overwhelmed healthcare systems and supply chain disruptions, we knew that we had to act fast to help our community. And so, the Sketty Community Outreach Group (now Sketty Online) was born.

The idea was simple: we wanted to help our isolated and vulnerable residents with their basic needs such as food and medication deliveries. We set up a Facebook group and with the help of local volunteers, distributed over 8,000 leaflets to spread the word. Within weeks, we had over 160 volunteers signed up ready to help their neighbours in need.

To streamline our efforts, Swansea Council Local Area Coordinator Ben Thompson developed a system that allowed us to map out our volunteers and link them with service users in their vicinity. This not only reduced travel time but also helped forge stronger connections that would last beyond the pandemic. Local Area Coordinator Tara Hughes also played a pivotal role.

But the Outreach Group was more than just a delivery service. Loneliness had already been a problem in our community, but with the pandemic forcing elderly people to isolate themselves, it reached critical levels. Our volunteers soon found that they were often the first person our service users had seen or talked to in weeks. Each delivery was more than just a bag of groceries or a prescription; it was a message of hope, friendship, and support to our most vulnerable neighbours.

Looking back, we are proud of what the Outreach Group achieved. We may have been a small community, but in the face of adversity not seen for over 70 years, we showed ourselves to be a very special place indeed. We made a difference to the lives of our neighbours and showed that in times of crisis, normal people can do extraordinary things. We hope that our actions helped to allay the fears of those in our community during a really frightening time. If we made even a handful of people feel less alone, we know we did a good job.