Originally set up to supply support for Sundridge, Ide Hill and Goathurst Common during the Corona Virus epidemic, we put in place facilities to supply nearly 2000 free hot meals (with both the White Horse and Sundridge and Brasted Social Club opening their kitchens free of charge), over 300 supermarket shops and prescription collections and delivering our own Newsletter ‘Happier TIMES’ with uplifting local stories and history to help boost peoples mental well being. The newsletter has now surpassed a delivery milestone of 9000 copies (see archive link above). We have now morphed into a charity ‘Sundridge and Ide Hill Community Group’ which, as we came out of lockdown, assisted first the Sevenoaks Garden Centre with social distancing for their customers to enable them to open, followed by painting the fences at the White Horse along with gardening and planting hanging baskets. We have also painted the exterior of the Sundridge and Brasted Social Club premises along with pressure washing and painting railings and outbuildings.
All these things were done to assist the businesses with their reopening.
We then moved onto other community projects, donating 11 picnic benches where we not only sourced the wood, but cut, stained and assembled it into benches for Coronation Gardens, an under used Parish asset. These have already been used by families and our elderly neighbours to give them somewhere to meet and socialise in the open. Our volunteers have additionally cleaned and painting the fences at Sundridge and Brasted Primary School.
A survey of our volunteers revealed a desire for more social interaction among those under our wing and, in response to this, we have committed to run at least one Community Event per month. This in will be advertised in the monthly Happier TIMES in a “dates for your diary” article along with other events from local pubs, clubs, charities and associations. Again the link can be found above. We are committed to social inclusion for all residents of our parish.
Our archive illustrates some of our achievements and will be updated as we add more events, we hope you enjoy them.
