A Perthshire councillor has applauded members of a volunteer group for making face masks out of everyday materials to protect residents across his ward.
Carse of Gowrie ward councillor Alasdair Bailey heaped praise on the Carse Community Volunteers group which was formed swiftly after the countrywide coronavirus lockdown was enforced on March 23.
The group has over 200 members and is helping “over 50 households a week” with shopping and medicine deliveries, as well as calls to fight loneliness.
And now an “army of sewers” is helping supply the vital PPE to locals.
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Cllr Bailey said: “I want to thank the Carse volunteers who have stepped up with offers to make masks for those helping neighbours at this time and others locally who wish to follow the government advice to wear these in shops and on public transport.
“It’s vital that we leave the supplies of professional masks for the professionals.
“Old curtains, jeans and more are being recycled into masks at the moment by an army of sewers in the Carse.
“Anyone in the Carse who can sew or has material to donate should get in touch with the group via www.facebook.com/groups/CarseVolunteers or using the phone numbers in the PA’s help pages.
“I want to also thank everyone who is helping in the Carse Community Volunteers group.
“We’re now helping over 50 households per week across the area and we have capacity to do more.
“We’ve helped people with lots of shopping, medicines and calls to fight loneliness.
“However, we have capacity to do more so nobody should be shy of coming forward if they need help with anything that will enable them to feel safer at this difficult time.
“These are unprecedented times and myself and the other volunteers have time to do more if people need it.
“Nobody should feel that their request is too trivial either. We’ve even fixed a television for an elderly person who was self-isolating.
“It seems strange at first but none of us would want to self-isolate alone without communication with the outside world.
“We can’t guarantee being able to fix every television but we are happy to help where we can with people’s mental wellbeing as well as basic needs for food, and medicines and company calls.”
