Blog. An important milestone

Today we’re marking the 5^th anniversary of the first Covid-19 grant Hospitality Action paid to a beneficiary who had lost their job without warning when the first lockdowns hit.

Our new Impact Report shows five years of innovation, tenacity and wave after wave of support from the industry and wider public. You can read all about how we have evolved our support from the initial surge in applications five years ago to the launch of our Benefits & Housing Advocacy services in response to the current financial challenges our beneficiaries face.

The launch of our report caused me to reflect on how that period felt, at Hospitality Action’s office in Farringdon. Last night, I scrolled down to early 2020 in my Outlook inbox and found myself transported back to those disconcerting weeks of early March, when Coronavirus was hitting its inexorable stride, and something called a Lockdown was first being mooted.  

Our March 2020 Timeline.

12 March 

We postponed our first fundraising event, lunch at Calcot and a tour of Highclere. By now, preparation was underway for the growing possibility that we’d soon all be working remotely: disaster recovery and business continuity docs were fished out of drawers, phone diversion functionality tested. 

16 March 

Though Lockdown was not officially applied for another seven days, Boris Johnson’s advice that we should cease non-essential contact and travel, sent shock waves through the industry we serve. 

The writing was on the wall. It was time to accelerate our response to the pandemic. Time to take massive action. 

By now, people from around the industry were beginning to make contact and offer support. Kathy Dyball, then at Caterer.com, wrote me a note with the subject line, ‘How can we help you?’ 

“Please let me know what you need”, her email ran. “I honestly want you to know nothing is off the table right now.” 

Adam Handling wrote: “I wanted to reach out to you at this very difficult time. Please let me know if there's anything we can do, and we'll be there to support.” 

And Umbrella Training’s Adele Oxberry wrote: “How can we help Mark? Please think if there is something practical that we can do, and we will be the first to help.” 

These and other nourishing offers gave us the confidence that, if we launched initiatives to help people troubled by Covid, we’d be supported. 

We hatched a buddying scheme to match people from around the industry with our self-isolating ‘Golden Friends’ retiree community. Within days, we had conscripted an army of 250 kind souls, who checked in with their Golden Friends and provided moral and practical support. Some are still in touch with their Golden Friends to this day. 

(One retiree later wrote: “so happy to hear there is a voice out there and you are looking after us. I am listening to my audio books and self-isolating and I have booked my shopping with Tesco’s. The voice at the other end of the phone has made my day”.) 

17 March 

We launched our emergency cash appeal in support of people who had lost their income as a result of the virus. Big-name chefs started releasing short videos to flag the appeal. We even received one from Stephen Graham, who was filming Boiling Point at the time. 

Our first donation, £10, landed at 10.35am. By the end of the day, we had received £842; and, by the end of the week, £70k. 

18 March

Our appeal gathered huge momentum with figures from across the industry and the wider public getting behind our campaign. Influential supporters took to the airwaves and social media to talk about our appeal and the plight of hospitality workers. Awareness went stratospheric when Hollywood Actor Stephen Graham who was recording Boiling Point at the time sent us a message on Instagram.

22 March 

We posted details of how to apply for the £250 emergency grants we planned to disburse with these funds on our Facebook account. Through the day, the account received 1.2 million visits, and the sheer weight of the resulting traffic brought our site to its knees by the evening. 

23 March 

D-Day. At 9am, our emergency grant application form went live. The clamour for support was huge – by day’s end, we’d received 21,000 applications. All spare hands on deck were redeployed onto case management. For hours, the number of emails flooding our inbox made it impossible to scroll up to the first messages received. 

Meanwhile, the first volunteer calls were made to Golden Friends and our most vulnerable beneficiaries. 

25 March 

We reached a major milestone,, with the payment of our first emergency appeal grants. Thank you notes soon started to roll in, including this one: 

“Thank you so much! I can’t tell you how much this will help me in this difficult time. I’m a single parent and haven’t had any income since early March. I’ve had to go to food banks to feed my little girl. What an amazing thing you are doing for those in need. From my little girl and me, thank you from the bottom of our hearts!” 

We were off … And the demand for our support hasn’t let up ever since.