Nicholas Ball, head of the Devonshire Freemasons together with his colleague Anthony Eldred their Charity Steward arrived at the office of the Okehampton & District Community Transport Group to meet Sue Wonnacott the manager of the Group to present them with a certificate to mark the £15,000 grant recently given to them on behalf of the Masonic Charitable Foundation (MCF) and the Freemasons of Devonshire.
The Okehampton & District Community Transport Group have been servicing the needs of the community for almost exactly thirty three years having started in May 1990 with a bus and a few volunteers. They now have two fifteen-seater buses, two wheelchair accessible buses with three drivers (but could do with more), around forty volunteer drivers with their own cars, used mainly for taking their clients to appointments etc. The whole operation is managed by Sue and her assistant Sarah Packer.
They are a small local charity offering accessible transport for both healthcare and social journeys covering an extremely rural area of West Devon of 274 square miles. Beneficiaries are mostly elderly, frail, disabled and rurally isolated who cannot access public transport but require a door to door service. Age UK reports that in later life, being able to get out and about is a vital way to stay part of the local community and to access local amenities. Free local bus travel is a lifeline for many older people who do not drive, but very often this isn’t an option for those who live rurally or have no local bus service available to them. For others, declining mobility may be preventing them from using public transport due to needing extra assistance.
The charity’s services include a Ring and Ride bus service which is a door to door service Monday to Friday from different village/hamlet locations each day into Okehampton for shopping, collecting clients from their homes; a 15 seat minibus used for lifestyle trips at weekends and during the week (depending upon driver availability) to various places of interest; 2 smaller wheelchair accessible vehicles which are mainly used for healthcare appointments but also for lifestyle and social trips; and a volunteer car scheme which currently has 35 drivers. Since beneficiaries are mostly pensioners fares are kept as low as possible e.g. Ring and Ride bus fares cost between £4 and £6 for a return journey and volunteer car scheme journeys are charged at 55p per mile.
More than 700 people will benefit from the grant which is spread over the 3 years. The charity has seen demand increase to unprecedented levels since the pandemic with several new clients registering each week. There are no wheelchair accessible taxis in the area so the charity is the only option for many clients. Feedback on the service is anecdotal and includes letters and messages from clients saying how they would not manage without their help and how much they appreciate the kindness of the volunteers.
Nicholas Ball when presenting Sue with the certificate said:
Local community services such as yours are invaluable especially in country areas, the need is probably greater in the Westcountry than most other parts of the country, it therefore gives me the greatest of pleasure to be able to support the Okehampton & District Community Transport Group with this grant of £15,000 and would like to thank you and your team for the dedication shown to the service you provide.
Sue Wonnacott replied saying that this wonderful gift of £15, 000 would enable the charity to continue the work the way it has done for the last 33 years, people don’t realise the cost of running the vehicles we use, they have to be serviced every ten weeks and the cost of upkeep alone runs into over £26,000 each year. This Grant from the Freemasons of Devon and the Masonic Charitable Foundation will give us the ability to continue the services we bring to the elderly community from Winkleigh in the north of the County down as far as Chagford long into the future.
