With May being National Walking Month, Active Newcastle (the Council’s health and wellbeing service) have encouraged people to “Walk, Donate, Nominate”. They have stated that the walk can be purely around the local neighbourhood, walking to a local park, walking the dog, going for a walk with a buggy, walking up and down the stairs, or taking part in a Live Action Newcastle session.
After doing the exercise, donations can either be financial to Citylife Line (or any charity of your choice), or it can be donating a smile or helping out a neighbour in need.
All of these activities have to adhere to social distancing rules at all times, but it is just one of the ways that Newcastle is injecting a community spirit into the city.
If participants donate to Citylife Life, it will help those who are self-isolating or shielding at home. The service was set up in March, and already £30,000 has been set up to ensure that food and other essentials reach Geordies who are at the highest risk from the virus, the Chronicle reports.
Almost two thousand people have already contacted the line, and so the donations are making a difference in everyday lives. Newcastle City Council leader, Nick Forbes, has said that, “The generosity shown both by Newcastle and by our global family during the crisis has been nothing short of remarkable. I’d like to thank everybody for the astounding collective efforts so far”.
Forbes has encouraged the support for this service, saying that here will be “many more people needing help in the weeks and months ahead”, and that “we must continue to do what we can to support each other through this crisis”.
