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- Eliza Ecclestone
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- Claire Ritchie
Sevenoaks’ Eliza Ecclestone and Claire Ritchie have both been recognised in the Queen’s New Year Honours list and have been awarded the prestigious British Empire Medal for their services to the community.
We caught up with Eliza and Claire to find out a little bit more about their inspiring story and how they felt upon hearing the news that they had been recognised for their selfless work.
Eliza fell ill with a light dose of COVID just before the first lockdown hit, and noticing the bubbling worry across Sevenoaks set up Care for our Community. This community group acted as a link across the district helping ensure the right people could get the help they needed, with people being able to register to help and ask for help in each parish.
Eliza explained the difficulties that came after the initial set up of Care for our Community: “Then it was just a case of organising the volunteers to make sure every person who needed help was reached, even if they weren’t on social media. Care for our Community itself became an incredible hotbed of extraordinary volunteers, and from there some really exceptional local initiatives were launched which I was lucky to be a part of including Invicta National Academy providing free catch up lessons, Sevenoaks Larder which started as a mobile food bank, and a Screen Donation Drive reconditioning donated screens and getting them to those who needed them and finally CleanUp Sevenoaks which runs an annual local litter pick.”
Within minutes of setting up the group and launching a Facebook page, Eliza already had people volunteers and within 24-hours there were over 1000 people ready to volunteer their time. “Every single thing was done by those volunteers. They weren’t just vital to Care for our Community, they were Care for our Community. We didn’t have a bank account, we didn’t have a board of governors; we were just a group of people trying to make sure everyone in Sevenoaks District who needed care got it,” added Eliza.
Speaking about her reaction upon hearing the incredible news she had been recognised in the Queen’s New Year’s Honour list Eliza told us: “I was completely stunned, what an honour! The whole experience had been so positive, it was, however, just the cherry on top. I was very aware that there are so many people across Sevenoaks who worked as hard as I did, and many much harder, who deserve this more than I do.”
Claire, who also received the British Medal Empire for her services to the community, was initially one of the 1,500 volunteers recruited by Eliza but also started her own initiative during the pandemic with Sevenoaks Lockdown Larder, providing food to those in need. The larder has continued throughout the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns and has now become a registered charity with a mission focused on growing and broadening the spectrum of the help they can offer by working in partnership with different agencies.
We had a chat with Claire to find out a little bit more about her reaction to being recognised for her hard work supporting members of the local community: “I’m very proud, I’m proud on behalf of the whole team, you feel a little unworthy on your own because I couldn’t have done it without any else. Everyone has been doing such good work in the community, everyone deserves recognition.
“It started off with me putting notes through neighbours’ doors thinking I would be doing it for a couple of weeks and life will be back to normal, but it’s just not. People have built up large debts over the last couple years and that’s going to take a while to clear.
“The aim now is to find out more about our clients. Thousands of people manage of benefits, and if you can’t manage on benefits it’s usually because something else is going on and if you don’t help people with that something else they will never be able to manage. You can plug the gap with food but they won’t be able to deal with the original problem from debt to mental health to housing, and if you get help with that core issue you can help them more than with just food.
“We will continue the food bank, but hope to broaden the spectrum a little bit to help people deal with the core issues people might have.
“It’s very exciting and I’m very proud of the whole organisation. The most important thanks come from the clients when we make a difference to their life, knowing we are doing the right thing.”
Both Eliza and Claire will attend a ceremony at Chevening House as part of their award, and will be invited to one of the Queen’s garden parties at Buckingham Palace. We take our hats off to both Eliza and Claire and we are sure this won’t be the last we hear of their generosity and love for the local area.