10 ways to pay it forward in Liverpool during the coronavirus crisis

We’re all looking for ways we can help the people who need it most during the coronavirus crisis in Liverpool, whether that’s frontline workers keeping us all safe or anyone vulnerable and struggling to cope.

Liverpool has really stepped up over the past few weeks to show an incredible community spirit, so if you want to get involved here’s 10 ways you can pay it forward.

Get making PPE for frontline workers or donate to buy materials

The makers from DoES Liverpool in the Tapestry District in the city centre are focusing their skills and equipment to make visors for healthcare workers who desperately need them. 

DoES has already raised more than £10,000 for materials, and shipped almost 3,000 visors, but more donations and offers of help are still wanted. 

If you have a laser cutter or 3D printer, you can join the community and fulfil ongoing orders, or you can volunteer to help with assembly or with finance, comms, PR, and project management.

To get involved visit the website here.

Help the most vulnerable children in our city

The coronavirus has had a huge impact on families who are already struggling, living on low incomes or on the brink of poverty. Radio City Cash for Kids has launched an appeal to help them.

Where families are under pressure financially, it can be children who end up being sadly impacted and Radio City Cash for Kids wants to offer support to ease some of that strain.

Any donation, from as little as £5, can make a difference and the fund will provide grants will help families with children cover basic essentials such as food and heating.

To find out how to donate, visit the website here.

Wear the merch to show love for NHS

Bootle-based brand marketing specialist Wild Thang has created a range of limited edition T-shirts so people can show their appreciation for our NHS heroes.

 The company has already provided T-shirts, hoodies and sweatpants to the Clatterbridge Centre after hearing they needed clothing for frontline staff looking after Covid-19 patients.

 Now creatives have come up with T-shirts with messages of love and support for the NHS. For each one sold Wild Thang will donate 50% of the purchase price to NHS charities or send a T-shirt to NHS staff.

To order visit the website here.

Forget footy rivalries and join the Blue Family!

As a city we’re great at putting aside Red and Blue rivalries when it really matters, and it definitely matters now.

Everton in the Community has launched a Blue Family campaign to help support people who are most vulnerable, isolated or at risk in Liverpool during the coronavirus emergency.

A big part of that is delivering essential food parcels to families including breakfast packs for young children, basic hygiene packs with shower gel, toothpaste and loo roll, and prescription drop-offs.

Find out how to donate and support the campaign here.

Give hard-working nurses a helping hand

If there’s one thing we’re all doing more of in this crisis – apart from staying away from each other – it’s washing our hands.  For nurses on the frontline, that can mean at least 100 washes with strong sanitiser a day, which is why a team from Liverpool Hope Uni has come together to make sure ITU nurses at the Royal and Aintree hospitals get soothing hand cream free.

Through Body Shop at Home, they’re delivering creams directly to the ITU units. Anyone interested in helping the project is asked to donate the cost of a hand cream – £4 – via Hope’s online store.

To donate and send hand cream to nurses go to the website here.

Support the wellbeing of our NHS heroes

Looking after the wellbeing of our NHS staff while they look after us has got to be a priority and there are a few ways you can do that, either by donating cash or specific items. Hospitals across the city have set up staff welfare appeals, including the Liverpool Royal University Hospitals Trust, Liverpool Women’s Hospital and the Walton Centre.

Examples of help needed include hand cream, lip balm, hand sanitiser, tea/coffee, packed food like biscuits and chocolates, bottles of water, and other toiletry items – or just lovely little treats!

Money donated will go towards ideas to care for and look after hospital staff – like that at the Women’s Hospital which is treating staff to a free cooked breakfast every Thursday morning.

To help #TeamWalton go to the website here.

For #TeamLWH email fundraising@lwh.nhs.uk or go to the website here.

And for the Royal, you can help with essential items by emailing the fundraising team via sfsdonations@liverpoolft.nhs.uk or phoning 0151 706 3153.

Cash donations can be made via the website here.

Veg for you – and for someone else

If you buy a vegetable box from Greens for Good, you can also buy one to be delivered to someone in need.

  All its greens are grown at Farm Urban in the heart of the Baltic Triangle, and boxes contain a mixture of salad leaves, treats like edible flowers, fragrant herbs or flavour-full rainbow chards or Tuscan kale.

  The weekly greens box costs £7.50 and so, if you match like for like, that’s £15 and you get wholesome food as well as the chance to help a vulnerable person. Greens for Good currently delivers within a four-mile radius of Baltic Triangle.

Here’s the website you need to visit.

Box clever to help your community

Kirkdale Boxing Club has expanded the Christmas Box support it usually hands out in the festive period during the coronavirus crisis, teaming up with sponsors including LA Productions, Trandelpino and Maverick Stars to give out up to 70 hot meals plus a few other food essentials to the elderly and vulnerable every day.

The meals are available for collection and they can also be delivered if people can’t get to the club.

You can help by suggesting someone you know who could benefit from a hot meal or by making a donation to the project. Call 0151 933 9889 or 07951819170.

Here’s the Instagram page to visit.

Support NHS, foodbanks and the homeless by buying food to be delivered on

LIDS delivering to Whitechapel

LIDS, Liverpool Independent Delivered Services, was launched by Liverpool Chef Dave Critchley from Luban restaurant in the Cains Brewery to bring together leading producers and fresh food suppliers so families could get a high-quality essentials delivery service during lockdown.

  But as well as buying for yourself, you can buy for others too. LIDS will deliver to a range of charities and organisations – for example, in one day it sent out 350 packed meals, some going to The Whitechapel Homeless Centre, 100 to foodbanks and others to NHS community services in Prescot.

“People are donating to others through us, buying huge amounts of food for other people,” says Dave.

Visit the website here.

Sew much needed PPE kit to medics across Merseyside

If you’re handy with a sewing machine you can help put together much-needed scrubs, scrub bags and scrub hats for our NHS heroes.

 Karen Canty is one of many organising groups of people to cut and sew the equipment for hospitals throughout the city courtesy of the organisation, For The Love of Scrubs.

She says it helps to take part and do something positive in such an unsettling time: “And it’s making a difference, providing much-needed equipment for the medical staff in the NHS who are doing so much for us all right now.”

So, needles at the ready…

Aintree Trust and Walton Neuro – For The Love of Scrubs – Our NHS Needs You

The Liverpool Royal: For The Love Of Scrubs – Our NHS Needs You

For the Love of Scrubs: Liverpool Women’s and Alder Hey Hospitals