- Date: 16/11/2020
Mrs Jones lived alone and couldn’t get out and about much because of her poor health. She had support to take her out and get her shopping a few times a week but rarely saw people between these outings.
She was referred into our befriending service in 2018 and was matched with one our trusted volunteers. They’d meet face to face at least once a week, which turned into telephone befriending when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Last month, Mrs Jones called her befriender to say her electric had gone off, which meant she couldn’t eat as she relied on microwaves meals. To make matters worse her heating had also stopped working. Her quick-thinking volunteer called Revival straight away to see how we could help.
Julie Russell, Support and Wellbeing Manager at Revival, explains: “Although electrics are something we don’t usually attend to, we could not leave Mrs Jones without any food or heating, and it would soon be dark and dangerous without any lights.”
Luckily one of Revival’s tradespeople was on his way home and near the area. He agreed to visit Mrs Jones and see what he could do.
When he arrived, the electric was working in every room, apart from the kitchen and the heating was not working at all. After checking the fuse board, the tradesperson realised the trip switch had gone off, so he reset it.
Revival then checked all the appliances in the kitchen to see if they could see what had caused the switch to trip and realised that Mrs Jones had accidently boiled the kettle dry. The tradesperson left with her heating now fully working and all the electrics back on.
Julie Russell said: “Thanks to the quick actions of Mrs Jones’ befriending volunteer, she was safe and warm again in a well lit home. The team also saved her the cost of an expensive electrical call out.
“She was very grateful to Revival for helping her out and sorting it out as quickly as we could and I’m very pleased that the team jumped on the opportunity to help Mrs Jones as quickly as they did.”