Thousands of hugs from Crawley RFC
Crawley RFC have been providing thousands of individual care packs to support NHS and front line workers.
The wife of their former chairman, Paul Chapman, got in touch with current club chairman Dan McGurran, wanting an NHS contact to send care products from her village. Dan, who has four siblings and their partners working for the NHS agreed that this was a great idea.
“I’m very aware of the pressures those on the front line are all under and we have a large number of our club members working in frontline jobs, so it felt like a great thing to do.” he says.
“I thought as a community club we could pick this up, reach more frontline workers with little individual care packs. Canvassing our membership, I found a willing member to project manage the idea and Caroline Thurloway and I then reached out to the local community for donations of products and also setup a gofundme page for cash donations so that we could purchase products in bulk ourselves.”
In a couple of weeks they managed to procure the best part of 16,000 individual items of pamper products like essential oils, tea and coffee, mints, hand cream, face masks, body lotions, scented candles. They put half a dozen in each hug in a bag.
“We reached out to large companies asking for donations and to our sponsors, one being Mcdonalds, who have given us 1500 bottles of water, cookies, brownies, tea and coffee and fruit bags. The donations are still coming in from all over. In one week alone we dropped off over 1,000 individual bags to our local police station, East Surrey Hospital and three South East Coast Ambulance hubs,” says Dan.
“We’ve already sent out 5,000 hugs in a bag to staff, getting tears of joy and gratitude when we have handed them over to these tired and burnt out frontline staff. This small gesture has made their day that little bit easier, given them a chance to unwind after work and the food has gone a long way in giving them a little energy to keep going, often without a proper break because of the pressure they are under.
“The clubhouse was empty so we cleaned it down and set up five work stations with people working independently making up these packs in a covid secure way. Everything that comes in is sanitised before being packed and everything is sealed once in the bag so we know it’s clean and safe to send out.
“A lifelong club member who runs a printing company produced stickers to seal the bags and a little thank you for every bag, which also has a little pick me up quote on it for frontline workers to read and, we hope, remind them why they do what they do when things get tough.
“We will soon be sending out a further 3,000 bags and have secured two large cosmetic companies who have offered to donate us thousands of products to use in the bags, along with a large food supplier sending us biscuits and other confectionery.
“With this and the cash donations, we envisage being able to make up the best part of 7,000 individual hugs in a bag, which almost covers three hospitals, nurses and doctors, as well as care homes, police, fire and ambulance stations.
“At Crawley we thrive on being a community rugby club and want to show everybody what community rugby clubs are all about, especially off field. We want to be seen as a hub where anybody can come whether or not it’s for rugby, especially as we have a site that can be put to use supporting our local community.
“It has been amazing to have achieved so much in such a short time with only a handful of people involved and we’ll continue with this initiative to give back to our community for as long as we can. It’s all about that rugby family mentality.”
