Bringing rainbows to children across Fenland

Rainbows have been popping up everywhere during the current coronavirus pandemic and in Fenland they have even been arriving come in boxes.

Hundreds of Boxes of Rainbows have been delivered to children across the district to make life a little brighter.

Box of Rainbows is a project created by local community organisation CCORRN who created the boxes in memory of one of the founder’s children.

The Box of Rainbows scheme usually donates crafts resources to children with chronic illnesses however having seen the level of need in the community caused by the COVID-19 lockdown, CCORRN felt compelled to respond and approached partner organisations to help them expand the scheme to hundreds more local families in need.

CCORRN’s Community Reuse centre is usually the “go to place” for affordable eco resources for many Fenland families, however as a non-essential community business the centre has been closed during the pandemic just when people needed those crafting materials the most.

Following overwhelming positive feedback from the first round, more support and funding for resources has enabled the project to expand.

Particular thanks must go to the organisations who found some 'pots of gold' to support the project; Cambridgeshire Community Foundation for £4,200, and Clarion Futures, the charitable foundation of Clarion Housing Group which donated £5,000, and Cambridgeshire County Council’s Community Reach Fund, which gave £1,000.

The project partners that have so far contributed to this fantastic initiative are CCORRN, Cambridgeshire County Council, Fenland District Council, 20Twenty Productions, Clarion Futures, Oasis Community Centre, People and Animals, Living Sport, Active Fenland, March Food Bank, and Smurfit Kappa.

There are many unsung heroes involved in making this happen, including: those who gave their time, money, resources as well as the volunteers who helped with sourcing, ordering, designing of the activities, picking, packing, printing and collecting boxes and the plants.

Delivery required a network of community organisations, volunteers and statutory services who distributed the boxes as part of their normal services as much as possible to avoid non-essential travel.

Normally CCORRN Community Reuse Centre in March, would be supplying hundreds of families and community groups with household paint and creative resources. Instead this project has provided free creative resources to hundreds of families, the first 200 boxes went to over 450 children and thanks to the additional funding further rounds of boxes will continue into August, bringing the final total in at 1,100 Boxes of Rainbows for Fenland families.

Nikki DiGiovanni the Box of Rainbows founder said: "It is amazing how quickly we were able to go from idea to delivery simply because everyone involved just wanted to spread some joy to the lives of local children. My heartfelt thanks goes to all the people that worked so hard to make this happen, it has been wonderful and we hope that other organisations might like to donate resources to be able to help us do much more in the months to come".

Matt Parsonage, head of communities for Clarion Futures, said: “The coronavirus outbreak has brought communities together to support each other which has been wonderful to see. We’re proud to support the Box of Rainbows scheme which is making a huge difference to local children and families and look forward to seeing how the project develops.”

Katherine Nightingale from 20Twenty said: “We are delighted to partner with Rainbow Boxes, and thanks to the Fenland Youth Advisory Board for funding the materials to support the activities for our Neuron's packs. Neurons is a range of free creative activities that are sent via Mailchimp, they are created by artists and are easy to follow giving children something creative to do during this unprecedented time, to sign up visit https://www.20twentyproductions.co.uk/neurons.php. “

Ashlea Smith – Living Sport: “We are delighted to play a part in the Rainbow Box distribution and support families during this difficult time. A big thank you to Sport England, ‘Families Fund’ programme who’s funding made this possible. We will continue to support people across the county to stay active during this time of uncertainty and for more information on staying active please visit: http://www.livingsport.co.uk/stayinworkout/ “