Hayling woman who coordinated island's coronavirus community response is praised

Wendy set up the Hayling Helpers Facebook page before the first national coronavirus lockdown, and was overwhelmed with the response.

Since then, Wendy and her team of hard-working volunteers delivered thousands of food parcels and prescriptions for people who were self-isolating.

Reflecting on the swell of support to her plea, Wendy said: ‘It just went absolutely nuts overnight. By the time I woke, I had hundreds of people saying they wanted to help.

‘The support from Hayling and Havant has been phenomenal. You’re not anything without a good team.

‘I wouldn’t have believed it was possible, I thought there’s no way in a matter of weeks you would be able to put together such a workforce.’

Hayling Helpers continued to support the island throughout lockdown and beyond, and still works in the background for those who are self-isolating currently.

Wendy added: ‘You lose a bit of hope in humanity but that has proved there are some very good people out there.

‘There are hearts of gold, this drew the gold out of people and I don’t think people even realised they had it in them.

‘This has affected everyone in some way so everyone has pulled together.

‘I think it brought a lot of people down to earth as well – it has certainly made me realise how lucky we actually are.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

The News is more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription to support our journalism.

You can subscribe here for unlimited access to Portsmouth news online - as well as our new Puzzles section.