weel kent faces in Ayshire

Colin Young, ACES Development Worker

ACES as the group is known locally, was set up in September 2007 by concerned residents of Woodwynd area of Kilwinning the largest housing scheme in the town.

Although the Woodwynd has large areas of green space it had very little else. The Council owned Community Centre was very under used and meant many children and young people were left with nothing to do or no where to go.

ACES started by setting up programmes for children and their families to attend this included youth clubs, drop in’s lunch clubs, football teams, school holiday clubs  and bouncin’ bairns. we then began to visit schools and delivered awareness sessions in bullying, internet safety, knife crime alcohol and drugs abuse.

In March 2020 all of this had to be closed down and ACES were left to see what would unfold, we were asked to help the council deliver prescriptions as we were ‘’weel kent faces’’ in the town and silver citizens would most likely be comfortable opening their door to someone they recognised.  It became a factor that many families would struggle during the lockdown.

The council distributed food boxes to those who qualified for free school meals, however more and more families were furloughed which meant a reduction of 20% of each income reducing the household income by 40% they didn’t qualify for food boxes, we spotted this loophole and began to deliver food and essential items to these families, to gain the best produce and maximise value for money we travelled 35 miles and back to the Glasgow fruit market at 2am to buy good class one fruit and veg , then come back and packed this produce into parcels and deliver it to families ,we usually delivered approx. 250 per week, using a local butcher we also rotated the food with fresh meat and also delivered cleaning materials at the same time.

This meant families had a way to feed and keep clean during the covid-19 crisis. We are currently setting up a community pantry where families can obtain food and essential items cheaply with a weekly membership of £2 they can take home £15 of food etc. we also won the regional high street hero’s  award for our work in North Ayrshire.

I think Scotland needs to either signpost support or support the citizens, the safety measures being put in place seem to be for a perfect conditioned country, which is confusing to all and is often out of date before being put in place, a clear structure so everyone can understand