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Wales Online
Wales Online
National
Katie-Ann Gupwell

The lovely way a nine-year-old girl got to know her neighbours through lockdown

A little girl spent lockdown cheering up her elderly neighbours by writing them postcards, doing their shopping and picking up their medical prescriptions.

Nine-year-old Molly May was nominated by her mother Jennifer May to be one of WalesOnline's Covid Heroes after she helped to keep people's spirits high in their street in Caerphilly since the first national lockdown.

Molly spends a lot of her free time volunteering as an ambassador for children's charity Bullies Out, but throughout lockdown she wanted to do something else to make sure she was making a difference.

Jennifer, 34, said: "I was a bit panicky like any mother, and she just wanted to go out and make sure everyone was looked after.

"She made postcards and posted them all through people's doors.

"We hadn't lived here that long so we didn't know many people.

"It can be difficult to get to know the neighbours but, with what Molly was doing, I have got to know a lot of the neighbours now.

"She would make her own word searches and knock on the window to chat to neighbours."

Jennifer said there are a lot of elderly people in the street, and some of the residents were self-isolating at the start of lockdown.

When Molly would chat to neighbours through the window, she would offer the family's services in case there was anything essential they urgently needed.

Molly with her mum, Jennifer (Richard Swingler)

Jennifer said: "People would see Molly and it would make people smile, because they couldn't see their grandchildren and things like that.

"She just wanted to go out and make sure everyone was OK in the street.

"She offered to get their prescriptions so we would use our daily exercise to pick up the prescriptions once a week."

Jennifer said it was the "little things" Molly was doing, but her kind gestures would often help people in a big way.

Molly would go around the houses on her scooter (Richard Swingler)
Molly visits her neighbours Janette and Maldwyn Griffiths (Richard Swingler)

WalesOnline has teamed up with Amazon – whose own staff went above and beyond to keep deliveries going through lockdown – to recognise the Covid Heroes in our communities.

We want to hear about the Covid Heroes of your community.

All we need you to do is fill in the form below and nominate a person, organisation or group that has made a difference to your life in 2020.

Hundreds of people and organisations from across Wales have already been nominated like Molly May.

If you can’t see the survey, click here.

As for Molly, she said she just wanted to cheer people up during a time that was difficult for all of us.

And it's clear that her neighbours have grown very fond of her.

Molly chats to one of the neighbour Natalie Painter (Richard Swingler)

Molly said: "In lockdown everyone was a bit sad so I wanted to do something to make them smile.

"We made cards for them, and we made word searches for them.

"We would go out and say 'if you need anything you can tell us and we can pick it up from the shop'.

"It maybe cheered them up a bit."

The neighbours returned the favour when Molly's birthday came around earlier this year.

To give her a special thank you, those neighbours who were able to stand outside their homes sang happy birthday to her.

Molly said: "Everybody in the street gave me birthday cards and they came out on the drive to sing happy birthday to me.

"We are now planning our Christmas card drop.

"I just didn't want people to be sad.

"I missed my family, and I didn't want people to be like that too."

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