Risca community group creates a pumpkin paradise with a little help from Tesco

A Risca community group had the opportunity to create a pumpkin paradise this Halloween, thanks to donations from their local Tesco store.

Risca CV19 Volunteers, known as RCV UK, held a pumpkin carving and biscuit icing event as part of their half-term activities programme, and even created their own pumpkin patch for local children to pick their own pumpkins.

RCV UK was formed by local residents, Dawn Derraven and Tara Holloway at the start of the Covid 19 pandemic. Other people rallied around to help, and there are currently over 200 volunteers helping to support around 300 families and individuals in Risca, working from a hub at Channel View Community Centre.

The group offers many essential resources to the local community, including an emergency foodbank, free school uniform recycling for local schools, exercise and walking groups, and coffee mornings to combat isolation. They also ran a toy appeal last Christmas, and will be doing the same in the coming weeks to spread some festive cheer.

Sarah Warren, Community Champion at the Tesco Extra store at Pontymister Industrial Estate, Risca, said: “RCV UK have made a massive difference to the lives of people in Risca, and we want to do everything that we can to help them support more and more people for longer.

“We look forward to supporting their toy appeal this year, and hope it brings lots of joy after a tough time for all of us.”

Dawn and Tara said: “We work to ensure that no-one in our community is lonely, hungry or frightened. Whilst we started as a reaction to Covid, the services we provide are very much needed in our area anyway. From shopping to prescription collection to kindness calls to check in and lift spirits, we will do whatever we can to help.

“The children really enjoyed the chance to pick and carve their own pumpkins, and we’d like to thank Sarah and the rest of the team at Tesco for their support on this and with our other work locally.”