A concern for the wider community, as well as for its service users, prompted a Weston care agency to provide and distribute care packages for vulnerable people who are housebound due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Weston Mercury: The bags being filled with essentials.The bags being filled with essentials. (Image: Archant)

Notaro Homecare staff donated £10, or any spare items, to put together more than 25 bags of essentials including everything from long-life milk and soap to all-important toilet rolls, which they are currently distributing to those in need around the town.

Not only has the team, plus other people who offered to help, contributed towards the bags, but care supervisor Maria Meager, who instigated the scheme, also contacted Weston food retailer Farm Foods, based in Locking Road, who began putting groceries aside for them to collect.

Maria then made up the bags to include tinned foods, tea bags, sugar, eggs and ‘gold dust’ toilet rolls.

The bags are given out to service users, carers who are struggling to source items due to shop shelves being empty and those in need in the community.

Weston Mercury: The bags ready to be given out to those in most need.The bags ready to be given out to those in most need. (Image: Archant)

One grateful recipient was a 100-year-old woman in Weston who was housebound and desperate for food, with no relatives around to help her.

Courier driver Andrew Houlihan was making his usual deliveries for Yodel when he was startled by the elderly woman banging on her window in a distressed state, asking if he had any food because she had been told to stay at home.

Andrew’s wife, Cassie, works as an office administrator at Notaro Homecare, so he was aware of the care bags the company was distributing.

Andrew, who wore gloves, a mask and kept the correct distance while delivering two bags to her, said: “She cried, she was so grateful.

“It was heartbreaking to find this woman of 100 years old suffering in silence.

“I’m so glad I got the opportunity to help her.”

Staff are asking anyone in need to contact them to either arrange a no-contact pick up from the Notaro office on The Boulevard or to deliver to those who are housebound on 01934 422800.