Thank you for sending in these fabulous lockdown photographs... With your help, we have been able to raise funds for such an important and timely cause and raise the profile of the work undertaken by Covid Smart. We chose to support this new charity @covidsmart, because of their direct and fast response to the Covid-19 crisis.
Covid Smart was started in late March by three women. Dr Ali Joy, who works as a family doctor with a special interest in adult medicine having worked in cardiology at The National Heart Hospital and ICU at St Georges Hospital; Dr Amanda Welin, an Equine Veterinarian who has worked in Public Health in Sweden and with various animal pandemics; and Keeley Foley, a barrister who has worked in international and human rights law and is training to be a podiatric surgeon.
Covid Smart presents the scientific research and facts in an accessible way, contributing to research projects in Oxford, and donating their proceeds from testing and donations to help key, frontline workers' needs in immediate, practical and grass-root ways.
Together with your support for Love My Old Connolly, as well as that of other businesses and individuals, Covid Smart have been able to donate to date:
10,000 Face masks
10,000 Aprons
1,500 Face visors
1,500 Scrub suits
500 Towels
150 Ear protectors
50 Goggles
300 Bags of toiletries
Dozens of showers
If you would like to donate independently please contact:
hello@covidsmart.co.uk
WHY GIVING MATTERS
A LETTER FROM ISABEL
This week we closed our charity sale raising funds for Covid Smart... out of sight but not out of mind and we hope very much that our customers and readers will continue to support these three phenomenal women. I was particularly proud to be able to work with something we have worked hard to create, to generate funds and help in this moment of crises, which sadly isn't over yet. And in the future there will be other opportunities to fund their work and other charities and we look forward to raising the banners again after the summer.
I wanted to tell a story that happened at the very beginning of this initiative, when one night, soon after we had started Love My Old Connolly, our shop manager Sumru was contacted by a customer of Connolly, an eminent surgeon who worked at a local London hospital. He asked, having read the letter about our Covid charity work, if we could help with an immediate and practical response; as he had a team of forty under him and they had no PPE for the next day... Between Covid Smart and Emergency Designer Network, who we have supported with fabric for gowns, we succeeded in getting the PPE to them within 15 hours... But the story is even more circular, as the surgeon had successfully operated on our warehouse manager Jem's mother the week before, and Jem had decided to personally take round our customer’s recent special order Connolly purchase as it was nearby to his home, without knowing this…but because he is a great chap.
What a small world it is and how much small kind gestures and that extra mile taken goes.
