UPDATE: COVID-19 Vaccination Support for Harpenden. Call for Local Volunteers

One week on – and we have had the most extraordinary response. Our request for volunteers last week was kindly forwarded on by many, and word has clearly spread across various residents and local community groups. We have even had a few former Harpenden residents offering to come back to the town to help! Over the last seven days we have now received over six hundred (605 to be precise) offers of assistance – and this figure continues to grow daily! 

Please bear with us. Thanks to more than a dozen Call Handlers and other Harpenden Trust volunteers who so kindly came by the Trust offices this last week, we have been very steadily and systematically getting back to people, thanking them for coming forward and asking them how they would like to contribute, and ultimately forming a detailed weekly Volunteer Rota. It is a mammoth exercise … covering four regular time slots each day, Monday through Saturday; comprising roles including outdoor marshalling, patient support and administration support; covering the first full week period with effect from Monday 4 January, in addition to covering some days immediately before and after Christmas. In aggregate the rota comprises 336 timeslots each week (or including the December dates, we are filling some 616 specific timeslots in total through to Saturday 9 January next year!). Each volunteer may then also need appropriate references and/or DBS checks putting in place – another substantial exercise, led by a separate Harpenden Trust team, that is also well under way.   

So many people have been so incredibly generous with their time. 

The rota is already 85% complete, and we have only got back to approximately the first 200 individuals to date who have come forward. We anticipate finalising the rota next week, and then creating a reserve list for those who may be able to step in to the weekly rota in later months, as and when some original volunteers may understandably need to step away. At the same time, we have also been able to collate the names of 73 potential vaccinators and we will be forwarding these details on to those coordinating the national response for vaccinators.  

We are determined ultimately to get back to everyone – either by phone call or email – but the task at hand is huge – so please bear with us if this takes us a little time. We anticipate ultimately calling back maybe the first 250 or so people who have so kindly contacted us, and emailing the remainder. 

Please do forward this update note on to anyone who you may have forwarded my original request to last weekend. It has been an extraordinary experience for those of us in the Harpenden Trust halls this week seeing how our local community has responded in such an overwhelming fashion. There are bound to be teething problems as we get such a substantial operation up and running – so please be kind if we need to recontact anyone or if some aspects take a little time – but we have been able to go back our GP Federation this weekend to confirm that as a community, we are ready to assist them when the local vaccination programme is ready to commence. 

Thank you all …. 

 

Richard Nichols

Chairman, Harpenden Trust

14 December 2020

In Other News

Harpenden Trust Community Fund contribute to repair and purchase of new play equipment for St Nicholas Primary School

24 October 2025
The Community Fund are delighted to have contributed towards the repair of the school playground and provision of new play equipment at St Nicholas Primary School. The school PTA have been very proactive in raising funding and the responses from the children confirm it has been money well spent. This is very much reflected in the comments from not just the headteacher and PTA chair but also from the pupils themselves.
More

Caritas Harmony Carols and Cake - 29th November 2025

14 October 2025
Caritas Harmony Carols and Cake at the Methodist Church, High Street Harpenden in support of the Harpenden Trust.  Please see the poster above for more details.
More

Thank you to the Hertfordshire Chamber Orchestra

02 October 2025
A huge thank you to the Hertfordshire Chamber Orchestra who performed at St Nicholas Church, Harpenden on Saturday 13th September. A fantastic total of just under £1000 was raised and donated to the Harpenden Trust. Richard Nichols, Harpenden Trust Chair, spoke in the interval to thank everyone involved and to give an overview of the Harpenden Trust and the many ways in which it continues to support the local community.
More

Hornbeam Wood Hedgehog Sanctuary and the Harpenden Trust Community Fund

30 September 2025
Hornbeam Wood Hedgehog Sanctuary is a very successful local charity who rescue and rehabilitate sick, injured and orphaned hedgehogs from Harpenden and surrounding villages that are then released back into the wild.  Hedgehogs are on the list of endangered species.  They also run a range of outreach and educational activities for the local community, focusing on schools, childrens groups and local environmental and wildlife groups. The charity has been running for 10 years and during that time has seen a…
More