A youth group mobilising to support vulnerable people in their community has been awarded £1,000 from a regional builder’s charity fund.

Box Youth and Community Group, based in Hall Farm, Sunderland, has been handed the funds by Persimmon Homes Durham as its Community Champions scheme looks to assist the over 70s during Covid-19.

Persimmon Homes Durham launched Community Champions in 2015 with a view to helping community groups, charities and good causes across County Durham, Wearside and South Tyneside.

However, as the nation starts to feel the effect of the Covid-19 outbreak, the housebuilder feels that, at the moment, elderly communities are in the most need of support. The change of direction came into effect from April.

Denise Barna, who applied for the funding on behalf of the project, said: “We wanted to help the vulnerable members of our community and have leafleted bungalows and households of the elderly and offered support with shopping, collection of prescriptions, dog walking, friendly telephone call daily to check people are well and don’t need anything.

“We will also deliver a daily carton of freshly made soup and a bread roll to residents who are ill and maybe not able to cook for themselves.

“We have contacted agencies we work with to see whether they are willing to make a donation and we have appealed to current users and their families to ask whether they are able to make a donation to enable us to deliver this service over the next three months.

“This generous donation from Persimmon Homes Durham will be a huge help to our community and will help us delivering much needed help and support.”

Each month the Bowburn-based builder donates up to £2,000 to community groups across the region. This also happens across Persimmon’s other 31 operating areas, meaning up to £64,000 is dished out every single month – a total of £768,000 a year.

Richard Cook, director in charge of Persimmon Homes Durham, said: “We are fortunate to be able to support our communities and give back in the areas in which we are building.

“We would urge any group working with older people to visit the Persimmon Homes website and to try and become our next Community Champion.”

For more information or to apply for Community Champions funding visit www.persimmonhomes.com/charity

To contact the Box Youth Project visit The Box Youth & Community Project Facebook page, email - [email protected] or call 0191 5225031.