As you may know, Wheels for Wellbeing has been supporting the Lewisham Irish Community Centre’s Bia project since April of last year. Working in collaboration with the Centre and New Hope Café, our team of volunteers have been delivering freshly-prepared, healthy meals every Wednesday – by bicycle of course, how else?! – to older and isolated residents across Lewisham.

The Bia project has been incredibly rewarding, with volunteers Anna and Jane talking about their experiences in a blog post back in October (which you can read by clicking here). More recently, in an exciting turn of events the Bia project has been announced as one of the recipients of the Lewisham Mayor’s Award, “for the valuable contribution within the borough’s community response to COVID-19.”

As you can imagine, we’re pretty chuffed about receiving the prestigious award, with Project Lead Matt Beale-Collins saying the following: “This has been a wonderful partnership between Wheels for Wellbeing, the Lewisham Irish Centre and the many volunteer cyclists who make up the delivery team, who live locally and come from all walks of life. The people we deliver to are very grateful for the social contact as well as the food. Covid has been so tough for everyone and I feel proud to be part of a project that has been there since the first lockdown.”

We would like to give a huge thank you to the Lewisham Mayor team, for recognising and celebrating the successes of the Bia project!