Sarah is the founder of our charity and an inspiration in the community, she set up Serving our Superheroes (SOS), a project, at the start of the pandemic supporting frontline care workers. The project evolved, to support the homeless and since then it has evolved to support parents who are struggling financially, provided baby items and school uniforms and she has been working with domestic violence charities to support victims of domestic violence and supporting orbit communities to thrive.

As a registered charity, SOS has grown and brought the community together to support those in need, it has won the Chamber of Commerce Business Award Best Charity, has been shortlisted for the Thames Valley Business and Community Awards  best Charity and has won the International Stevie Awards.  The project has donated over 47,000 items (worth over £600,000) and this figure continues to grow daily.

Sarah has various voluntary roles focused on helping to end poverty which include, trustee of a food bank and credit union, a dementia champion, and part of an international charity supporting people in Uganda.  She is also a Rotarian and president elect for the Elthorne-Hillingdon Rotary club. She has been managing various projects, including setting up a dementia project and various other projects in the community. She is currently working on a vaccine project for developing countries.

During the Covid-19 pandemic she has been volunteering at the vaccine centre, then trained to be a vaccinator, a Covid-19 care caller, and a community champion.   She also continued with her current voluntary commitments and her charities, For instance the demand for Hounslow Community Food Box tripled and Sarah was part of arranging the move to a larger building to operate from and updating policies to be Covid-19  safe.  Sarah has also set up two charities, as well as setting up SOS, Sarah set up Well-Being for All, a mental health charity.   She has completed 16 years of volunteering averaging well over 1,000 hours per year.

Phil has suffered with poor mental health in the past, especially during the pandemic, as this has been an incredibly hard time for us all. However, Phil decided to give value back to his own community and set up the very first men's mental health support group in Stratford-on-Avon. The group aims to help support people's mental health through listening, being an ear for someone on their own, and running wellbeing activities.

He reached out to other organisations, arranged for additional support to enable the group to grow and upskilled himself by attending training on a virtual community camp with the Eden Project.

As if this was not enough, Phil also attended the online training sessions run by our Tenancy Sustainment team to provide him with the skills to help and support group members. He attended sessions on: Confidence & Self-Esteem, Motivation & Mindfulness as he knew these were things that many people were struggling with during the pandemic.

Phil has really pushed himself out there, despite struggling with his own confidence, to promote the group and has appeared on a local radio station and in the local news. More recently, Phil was invited and got involved with a local planning project with Warwickshire County Council, and local councillor nominated him for an Orbit Community Champions award – which he won!

He has done lots of work with Orbit for many years as an engaged customer, and he volunteers as a Town Hall marshal. He volunteered weekly as a Digital Champion in our Greenhill Street office pre-coronavirus and is a brilliant Orbit ambassador in his local community.

Corby Sport Dimensions has provided amazing support to Orbit families in Kettering throughout the last year.

They provide free places to young people living in Orbit homes at their school holiday activity camps and provide opportunities for them to become young leaders. They have worked incredibly hard to keep a camp running throughout the pandemic, despite very difficult circumstances They were unable to use the two schools where they normally operate, so they hired the local scout hut instead, giving priority places to Orbit customers.

They sourced funding for transport to the scout hut, as it was further for Orbit families to travel compared to the usual school locations and gained funding to work with a caterer to provide hot meals. They also provided groceries, winter clothing and Christmas presents to vulnerable Orbit families whilst running a virtual after school club throughout lockdown. For one Orbit family, they supported with safeguarding and housing issues, providing 1-2-1 support to the children involved.

Recognising the impact of the pandemic on young people's mental health, they recently employed a wellbeing coach to work with staff and the young people who attend their camps and activities. Throughout all the uncertainty of coronavirus, CSD has provided a safe and welcoming place for young people to meet and enjoy a raft of activities, whilst also encouraging good behaviour and kindness among their young people. They are a fantastic organisation - 139 young people have been supported to access activity sessions, 465 hours of volunteering have been completed and £147,884 of social value has been created from their project.

The Exchange has been a stalwart support for the community throughout 2020. At the height of the pandemic, they spearheaded our initial response to the pandemic. Within three weeks of lockdown we partnered to deliver - 300 emergency fresh food packages to our sheltered schemes, over 3,500 hot meals to vulnerable families and coordinated a volunteer force working in very trying times to deliver food across the borough

On top of these contributions to the community, they assisted Orbit to secure £1.2m Arts Council funding to support marginalised people to participate in arts and culture, secured £20K Greater London Authority (GLA, Grow Back Greener) funding to help us plant trees on our Slade Green estate and lead the planting on site. This increases the biodiversity of the area, provides a more usable, safe space for the community and helps us achieve our Orbit Earth ambitions.

Sarah and Pete who lead this project have fought tirelessly to save the old Carnegie Library from disrepair. Taking an initial Orbit investment of £50,000 and securing over £3m from National Lottery Heritage and Community Funds, Council and GLA funding to turn the library into a mixed-use community space. The library now hosts textiles, performing arts and woodworking sessions and boasts a community café. Set in the heart of our community they have raised the social capital by showing how our communities can lead on things that matter.

We will be working with them to develop a Town Centre Partnership for Erith to drive investment towards a Covid-19 recovery and more general renewal. These partnerships bring charities, businesses, and critical stakeholders together. There will be a community celebration event in August, which will include new markets at the old Erith Market site, which was once the pride of the community and something Orbit customers have tried to bring back.

Their tireless advocacy, support and willingness to work with Orbit and our customers has far exceeded any investment we have made. Their motivation is to change the community and rather than wait for others to do something, they have tirelessly fought for Erith to be the place it could be and not accept mediocrity. They have far exceeded what is reasonable and illustrate with alacrity how ordinary people can achieve extraordinary things. So much so that the London Mayor himself felt inspired to visit recently, in recognition of their amazing work!