Coronavirus update – the latest news from Yorkshire businesses

Pelican Engineering Group has donated over 10,000 medical grade face masks to help local care providers after hearing about the chronic shortage of PPE in care homes.

The Castleford-based company gave the disposable masks to care providers; including Snydale Care Home (part of Yorkshire based Warmest Welcome), Vicarage Court Care Home in Featherstone, Castleford Lodge Care Home, Manor Park Care Home in Castleford, House of Light (Allerton Park) and the Little Sisters of the Poor in Leeds.

Age UK Wakefield District also received a donation for their home support service.

Pelican says it is thankful for Yutong’s help in making this donation possible.

Yutong is the world’s largest manufacturer of buses and coaches and Pelican is the UK’s sole distributor of Yutong buses and coaches.

Richard Crump, Pelican’s managing director, said: “As the director of a third generation family company, I feel it’s important for the young to step up and support the older generation.

“I chose these providers as I thought the small chains would have less resources and buying power and therefore find it harder to get masks.

“I wanted to help my local community and donate the masks to places where I thought they would make the most difference.

“Speaking with the care homes, they certainly are in desperate need of more PPE. I would urge anyone who is in a position to help them to do so, as soon as possible.”

Tracey Holroyd, from Warmest Welcome, said: “This will really help us to keep our staff and residents safe.

“Face masks are difficult to source and often prohibitively expensive so a donation such as this is very welcome.”

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Doncaster headquartered mechanical and engineering firm, MechFS, has provided over 8,000 hot meals free of charge to NHS staff based at Doncaster Royal Infirmary.

The family-run firm, based in Beckingham, organised and fully funded a local food truck to feed frontline NHS staff based at DRI from 20 April until 8 May.

MechFS hired Yellow Bus Catering to feed the staff of DRI, aided by a rota of MechFS employees who volunteered their time to provide NHS staff with hot dogs, jacket potatoes and pie and peas.

Paul Sutherland, CEO of MechFS, said: “The MechFS team have had a fantastic three weeks at DRI aiding the professional work of the Yellow Bus team.

“The commitment, bravery and unwavering positivity of our NHS heroes during these unprecedented times has been inspirational and we are glad to have given something back to these extraordinary people.

“We are really grateful to them for all that they have done and continue to do.”

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Yorkshire-based cycle events company, Sportive HQ, has delivered over 5,000 water bottles and raised over £1,500 after responding to a request for bottles to keep frontline staff hydrated during the pandemic.

Hospitals across our country are a warm place to be with the extra PPE required and staff are struggling to keep hydrated.

Sportive HQ was approached with a request for any “spare bottles” it had.

It donated the 225 bottles had in storage but realised the demand was much higher and set up a crowd funding page to help.

Since then water bottles have been donated from British Cycling, HSBC, Cliff Pratt Cycles and Zyron Environmental who donated 3,000 bespoke NHS bottles.

Matt Porter, from Sportive HQ, said: “It started with a friend, who is an anaesthetist in A&E asking if I had any spare bottles for their hospital.

“I had 225 in storage which I delivered the next day. However, I quickly realised the demand for keeping hydrated was high and I felt this was my way of helping.

“I set up a crowd funding page and from there on it just snowballed with many generous donations.

“Although we have delivered over 5,000, there is still a huge demand – we have now created bespoke ‘Save our NHS’ water bottles for the public to buy – the £3 profit from each bottle will go towards the campaign for more bottles.”

Sportive HQ has also set up a virtual fundraising event called the Lockdown 50, taking place on 30 and 31 May.

Anyone can join in whether they are running or cycling, doing 50 km, 50 laps, 50 miles or taking part for 50 minutes.

All money raised goes towards the water bottle campaign to support the NHS.