News | 14 Jul 2020

‘Local generosity from companies like Vodafone helps us enormously’

Vodafone UK has provided Newbury Soup Kitchen with a portable wireless 5G router to ensure their volunteers could keep connected during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The 5G Gigacube, which was donated to Newbury Soup Kitchen at the beginning of lockdown, gives volunteers super-fast connection, as well as allowing the centre to continue running their services smoothly and supporting outreach programmes.

Vodafone also donated free unlimited data until the end of the year – enabling the volunteers to reach out to more people in the local area.

Meryl Praill founder and operations Manager for Newbury Soup Kitchen said: “we needed quick connectivity in order to keep in touch with our base, so it is wonderful that Vodafone has helped us by supplying a Gigacube.

“It has given us super-fast internet access within a matter of minutes.”

The 5G Gigacube connects to Vodafone’s mobile network to create a Wi-Fi signal. This enables the soup kitchen to have quick and reliable internet access that they require to continue working during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ms Praill continues, saying: “as the lockdown intensified, we had to adapt to a delivery service – taking nutritious hot meals to our clients.” She added that a lot of the people who received the hot meals were “rough sleepers that were temporarily housed by West Berkshire Council to keep them safe.”

Whilst the pandemic continued, Newbury Soup Kitchen also had to acquire extra temporary space to store all the donated foods.

Expressing her thanks to Vodafone UK, Ms Praill said: “This makes a massive difference to us. Local generosity from companies like Vodafone helps us enormously giving Newbury Soup Kitchen the opportunity to do what we do and provide the care that we can.”

To read more on how Vodafone UK is keeping the UK connected click here.

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