KCOM gives grants to charities in frontline against Covid-19

KCOM has changed the way it provides grants to the local community to help fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Due to the unprecedented Covid-19 situation, the Hull-based phone and broadband provider has doubled its community grant fund for this quarter to £6,000 and shared it between two local charities on the frontline against coronavirus.

The money has been split between the Smile Foundation and North Bank Forum which both provide vital support for vulnerable people, foodbanks and charities across Hull and East Yorkshire.

KCOM chief executive Dale Raneberg said: “With many people in lockdown, we had to think a little differently as to how we were going to share our latest round of community grants.

“We decided there would be no better way of making a real difference than by donating to two charities which are at the forefront of helping vulnerable people during these challenging times.

“Both the Smile Foundation and North Bank Forum are excellent charities which are channelling help to where it’s most needed, providing food, medicine, support and advice to those who are struggling at the moment.”

Jason Stamp, chief officer of North Bank Forum for Voluntary Organisations, said: “A huge thank you for this generous donation on behalf of KCOM which we will look to use to provide additional resource into the three emergency food banks we have established across the city.

“In the first week of operation 50 per cent of the calls received by the call centre and community hubs were food related and we are very pleased that we have been able to provide a co-ordinated response in this area.”

Normally, KCOM invites local charities to apply for one of three £1,000 grants which are handed out every three months. The public is asked to pick its favourite three from a shortlist of six finalists.

Previous grant winners have included Hull Visual Choir, The Special Stars Foundation, Friends of Westcott School, Bundles Of Joy and the Hull branch of the RSPCA.

The company will return to this system once the current challenging circumstances have passed.

As well as donating a community grant, KCOM engineers have been working with the Smile Foundation to deliver vital food and medicine packages in their vans to people across the region.

Andy Barber, chief executive of the Smile Foundation, said: “I’d like to say a personal thankyou to the team at KCOM for the volunteer hours they have put in every day through this crisis providing vehicles and people to deliver food and medicines across the whole of the East Riding.

“But beyond that they have made a massive financial contribution to our High Fiver grants scheme of £3,000 helping us to get very close to our £20,000 target.”

For more detail about what KCOM is doing to help during the coronavirus pandemic visit https://www.kcomgroupltd.com/covid-19/