An ambitious project by Stone Town Council and A Little Bit of Stone launches today to provide a dedicated telephone helpline and volunteer network to support vulnerable residents in the town.
The project was conceived by Stone Town Councillors Rob Kenney and Jill Hood, who asked ALBOS to come on board to recruit and manage the volunteer network. Whilst Stone Council secured the funding and provision of the phone line and virtual call centre, ALBOS began to build a network of front line volunteers and call handlers.
As well as financial backing from Stone Town Council, the Community Foundation for Staffordshire also contributed a grant of £4,921 towards the cost of setting up and operating the helpline throughout the Covid-19 crisis.
The new phone line is open to residents of Stone and is available between 8am and 6pm, 7 days a week – 0333 230 0112. All calls to the helpline will be recorded for training and monitoring purposes.
Callers will select the area they’re calling from – either Lichfield Road, Newcastle Road, Stonefield or Walton, based on the regions on this map.
They will then be connected with a local call centre operative who will take details of the request before forwarding on the details to the local frontline volunteers who can carry out the tasks.
At the time of writing, we have 160 volunteers and call handlers signed up and registered to carry out volunteering duties.
Duties include phone calls for lonely residents, collection of shopping and other essential tasks. Frontline volunteers will carry Stone Helpline ID badges and the local policing team have been briefed on the service to ensure that volunteers can go about their tasks.
We ran a competition to design a suitable logo and the one we chose was created by Emma Tilley, many thanks for everyone who submitted a design.
7,000 leaflets have been printed and are in the hands of our army of volunteers to be put through everyone’s door over the next few days.
Councillor Rob Kenney, Chairman of the Town Council’s General Purposes Committee, said
“We are pleased to be working with A Little Bit of Stone to provide a single helpline phone number that any Stone resident can call for help with shopping etc. if they are unable to leave their home. This will allow them to be put in touch with a local volunteer who can help to meet their needs.”
Councillor Jill Hood, Chairman of the Town Council’s Tourism and Town Promotion Sub-Committee, added
“I would like to thank the number of volunteers that have come forward to provide this service to their fellow residents, which is a tribute to the community spirit within our town.”
For A Little Bit of Stone Jon Cook said:
“We’re really pleased to be involved in helping set up and support a dedicated helpline for Stone. The town has always had a great sense of community, one of the reasons we moved here 15 years ago, but it’s been ramped up with the current Covid-19 crisis.
Thanks to Stone Town Council for sorting out a virtual call centre provider and providing the funding for the software and phone line to service the vulnerable residents.”
The new phone line is open to residents of Stone and is available between 8am and 6pm, 7 days a week – 0333 230 0112. All calls to the helpline will be recorded for training and monitoring purposes.
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