At the start of the first lockdown in late March 2020, a few of us came together through a simple Facebook post - thinking that there would be the need to help out in the local community to deal with whatever the pandemic might bring. It was incredible how quickly other people rallied round to get involved. We set up a phone line and distributed around 2,000 leaflets through local letterboxes, offering help where needed. With a team of around 40 amazing volunteers, we organised prescription pick-ups, grocery shops, garden tidy ups and sometimes just phone calls if folk were feeling isolated.

We teamed up with a local charity Scottish Highland & Islands and Moray Chinese Association and helped to deliver the lovely home cooked Chinese meals that Monica (the mastermind of SHIMCA) cooked up for vulnerable folk in the community. We then worked with Monica to set up the ‘Crown and City Community Cupboard’ remodelling her tool shed for a whole new purpose. The cupboard has been open every day since June 2020, sharing out surplus food. Teaming up with the primary school we also organised some events to get folk out and about and brighten up those lockdown days – the Tattie Bogle trail was a great alternative to guising and the Easter Egg trail was also a popular event.

We decided to set the group up on a more formal footing with a constitution in late 2020. We decided to call our group ‘Crown Connects’ with the mission to help Connect the Community. Since January 2021, Crown Connects SCIO is a registered Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation, number SC050700. This means there is a structure to bring together folk in the community who share our aims and help them make project ideas a reality.