Out & About
Community Transport
Serving our local community for over 20 years
CTA AWARDS 2021
Out & About Community Transport were thrilled to be involved with the CTA Awards 2021!
Out & About were shortlisted for Community Transport Provider of the Year and one of our photos was in the public vote photo competition.
The winner of the Community Transport Provider of the Year was Badenoch and Strathspey Community Transport in Aviemore Scotland. Out & About are truly honoured to have been shortlisted among so many amazing groups in the Community Transport Sector.
The CTA had this to say about Out & About Community Transport:
"Out & About Community Transport are based in Magherafelt, Northern Ireland and during the pandemic moved quickly to address the needs of their community by offering alternative services. They developed their Meals within Wheels project, delivering over 6,700 meals, as well as care packages from the council and supporting local grocery stores with deliveries.
Our judges were impressed with he proactive way they switched from taking calls to making calls, developing a system to identify those most in need and then making thousands of calls to ensure each person got the level of personal contact and support they needed.
'As the weeks turned into months,' they told our judges, 'there were many lengthy calls as loneliness and isolation were starting to get a strong grip, When our drivers deliver the meals, member shave an opportunity to see a lovely part of 'smiling eyes'! Even with face masks and social distancing, it was another bit of communication and human interaction that they wouldn't otherwise have had.'"
Out & About won the Photo Competition! Described by the CTA the category was "voted on by the public, the 2021 photo competition was for a photograph that captured the spirit of community transport during lockdown."
This picture shows our driver Owen McBride delivering meals to long standing members Peggy and Francis McLaughlin as part of our Meals WITHIN wheels service.