Last week we were contacted by the head of NHS Covid 19 in Newcastle, via a colleague’s wife at work. They were appealing for donations of sweet treats and toiletries for the Newcastle General Hospital Dementia Department (5 wards). We were advised that very few people seem to know that that this part of the NHS is still active within the huge area of the former General Hospital on Westgate Road. As a result, they are not on many people’s radar for receiving such donations. We were unaware that dementia patients crave sugary food and as the hospital is locked down there are no visitors to bring these “luxuries” in. Due to our shop closures, we had a stock of perishable items such as cakes, biscuits, fudge and chocolate that we were able to donate. For toiletries, which we do not stock, we approached our local Aldi which kindly gave us a number of toiletries at a heavily discounted price, plus more sweet items in the form of a case of Easter eggs. We did a drop of these items to the Newcastle General Hospital’s Dementia Departments, and had enough stock to also make a donation of goods to the Dolphin View Care Home in Amble, another connection of our colleague’s wife who herself works in this area of care. This week, we have also been able to support The Grange Care Home in Rennington, Alnwick Infirmary and Barndale House School with food donations, and hope to support more local causes in the weeks to come. If you have anything to help these lesser-known causalities of Covid -19 do reach out as they would be most grateful.