Spirit of Shankly’s ‘Help is Here’ campaign began back in March, as Covid-19 took hold. As a union, we are aware of the need to help our community in difficult times. We also wanted to act on our AGM commitment of supporting members and fans who are suffering mental ill health and dementia, and those at risk of suicide.

We realised then how tough life was becoming for the most robust of us. We could only imagine how hard it must have been for the elderly, those most at risk and the most vulnerable in our communities – those who struggle day-to-day under regular circumstances.

So we launched ‘Help Is Here’. For a short time in April, we allocated new member and renewal fees to get the fund started.

We were very quickly inundated with generous financial contributions and offers from many people, both members and non-members. Heartened by this collective will to help others, we asked our members to put forward individual names of family, friends or neighbours, in the Merseyside area, who would benefit from a food delivery to their door.

A small team of SOS committee members collated and managed the food distribution. And the community team in Morrison’s in Speke, Liverpool, worked tirelessly with us organising and packing the weekly parcels. Local taxi drivers, both Reds and Blues, volunteered to deliver directly to the door of those in need.

Over a 15-week period, more than 2,000 bags of food were delivered to the most vulnerable in our community and those working and risking their own health in the NHS and care homes.

From mid-August, we decided to work more closely with established community groups. Since then we have sent approximately 20 bags of food per week, on a rotation basis, for them to arrange the distribution within their local area. They have included:

An Hour for Others – https://www.anhourforothers.co.uk/

Kirkdale Amateur Boxing Club – Twitter @Kirkdaleboxing1

West Everton Community Council – www.westevertoncc.co.uk

Halewood Voice – Twitter @hwoodvoice2526

The Big Help Project – Twitter @BigHelpProject

Liverpool 6 Community Centre – https://liverpool6community.wixsite.com/website

We would like to thank each of you for making this possible. New members, those members and non-members who have made personal donations, and the volunteer taxi drivers who drove hundreds of miles to make the deliveries each week.

A special thank you also to Carol and Jane and their staff at Morrison’s who we continue to work with.

If you would like to suggest a community group who might like to be included in future distributions, please email us at [email protected]

Spirit of Shankly, your union, hoping to make life a little more bearable by helping where we can.

Unity is strength.

Thank you all for your support.

In June this year ‘Help is Here’ was documented in a short film by Harvey Morrison @Harveymovideo music by @JamieWebster94. Watch here: