Meet Cambridge Venues Give Back To The Community

Meet Cambridge, the only official, free venue-finding service for spaces at the University of Cambridge, its Colleges, hotels and other unique properties in and around the city, is applauding the efforts of its member venues who are providing support to the community during the current Coronavirus crisis.

In a sector badly hit by the lockdown, none of the venues in the Meet Cambridge portfolio is able to hold its usual conferences, meetings and dinners but is reaching out to help others.

Here’s what they are doing:

• Staff at Homerton College have emptied their fridges and donated food to the Cambridge Foodcycle Project.
• Madingley Hall is donating food that would have gone to waste to Jimmy's Night Shelter in Cambridge.
• Students who are still at Newnham College have formed a volunteer group to support vulnerable local residents including delivering medicines from the local pharmacy to those who can't leave their own homes.
• Robinson College is donating food to vulnerable groups, including most recently to C3 Church in Cambridge which is organising distribution to those in need.
• Anglia Ruskin University has donated PPE from its Cambridge Science Centre to Addenbrooke’s.
• The Athenaeum in Bury St Edmunds and The Granta Centre in Cambridge have offered use of their facilities to allow NHS Blood Donation sessions to continue.
• Newmarket Racecourses have joined forces with other Newmarket organisations to facilitate a community response network with Discover Newmarket's fleet of tour buses now being used for food deliveries.
• The Hilton Cambridge City Centre has joined in with the NHS #MakeItBlue campaign and donated 700 surgical masks, hand sanitiser and a whole host of other toiletries and treats to the Rosie Maternity Hospital, Cambridge.

Judith Sloane, Deputy Manager at Meet Cambridge said: “In these very difficult times, we have been overwhelmed by the way many of our venues have responded by offering support to the community. From donating transport for delivering essential food supplies to re-purposing PPE and other equipment, it demonstrates great generosity in helping others at a time when the venues themselves are unable to continue their day-to-day business of hosting conferences and events.”

Caption: Madingley Hall Chefs Chris Hinton and Mark Walker load food for Jimmy’s Night Shelter into the electric delivery van.

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