How Worcester Park businesses are helping people in lockdown

From helping break the digital divide to supporting volunteers at vaccination centres, these businesses have been raising smiles across south west London.

We have listed three charitable acts that have happened in the past week in Worcester Park.

Ross Fruiterers donate to Epsom Downs

Ross and team

Ross Fruiterers at Central Road, have been donating fruit boxes to different causes since the start of the first lockdown.

At the beginning of lockdown, Ross and his team were donating fruits to nurses at Kingston Hospital and a women's refuge centre.

Now, they are offering fruit boxes to Epsom Downs vaccine centre and donated their first boxes last week.

"We're going to do this for at least a month, every Friday," said Ross.

"Some of our customers have been giving us money to go towards it too, it is brilliant that people want to help.

"There are people in a lot worse situations than we are, so if we can give a bit back then why not?"

Bags of Thanks From Waitrose & Partners Worcester Park

Waitrose Worcester Park Partners Mandy and Dom recently delivered bags of gifts to staff and volunteers at Epsom Downs.

Store manager Stephanie, kindly gifted supplies of a selection of teas, coffees and snacks for the vaccine centre last week.

She said: "We were delighted to be able to help the NHS vaccination centre.

"It’s so important for us to pull together as a community in times like these.

"We hoped these donations would offer those at the centre a warm-up drink and a sweet treat to keep them going.

"It’s just a little thank you for all your hard work."

Laptop for schools project

Megabyte Computers have offered to repair unwanted, reasonably modern and working laptops.

Brad Russell, IT Consultant at Megabytes said: "We decided to launch the laptop for schools as we have been receiving more calls asking about this service over the past few weeks.

"We have repaired probably about 15 laptops so far, to customers who required their old laptops to be wiped and reloaded for the purpose of donating themselves.

"Thus far all donations that we have serviced have been directly dropped off by the customer.

"After making the announcement last week about the scheme, I have five laptops in the shop and a few more coming this week.

"These will be donated by ourselves directly.

"I am in the process of emailing schools to see which ones are interested in the scheme.

"I was raised in Worcester Park as was my mother and grandparents, went to Cheam Common School and now have a business all in the area.

"The past year has seen the community rally round for one another and seen a sense of community spirit.

"Most schooling is now done online with many parents unable to provide laptops for all their children, if we are able to help in any way then we will."

If you would like to help businesses with donations, contact Richard Johnson, of Worcester Park Residents Association here.