Good Guys Group show true community spirit helping thousands of people across Warrington

FROM feeding the vulnerable at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to helping the homeless during the recent floods, Warrington’s Good Guys Group has helped thousands of people across the town.

Launched at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last March, the group of volunteers has gone from strength to strength, ensuring food parcels got delivered to vulnerable people across the town. Then, when the floods devastated areas of the town, the Good Guys were quick to respond, supported by their army of volunteers.
Beth Trainer, Founder of Good Guys Group, said: “We are very humbled to be working alongside Smart Storage as they are run by a terrific team of people and we are blessed to have them believe in our cause of helping hundreds of people in need. Alison Crane has been a huge help from the beginning in arranging everything for us and is a credit to Smart Storage as we cannot praise her enough for her hard work.
“Good Guys have been running since March 2020 and we have been privileged to have helped thousands of people in less than a year!
“We have a brilliant bunch of people who kindly help to run our page and play an active role volunteering within the community and many residents tell us that the Good Guys have helped with their community spirit throughout the lockdowns and during the floods.
“From delivering free food parcels, picking up prescriptions, mental health and well-being support, organising birthday parties for struggling families, to turning houses into homes- we’ve done our best to help in any way we can. Yet we could not do it without all of the Good Guys coming together. We also provide links of other groups within the areas because there are many inspirational groups that can help with many different needs and we are blessed to work alongside them. The lovely Lindsay Baker and her team were generous enough to give the Good Guys a space at the Penketh Hub over Christmas for us to put together all of our free Christmas Hampers- they are all earth angels.
“We helped our amazing Alan Whitfield with his wobble room during last year with donations to help members of staff at St. Mary’s to have a nice breakout area, and now Alan kindly volunteers to help our Good Guys Group. Paying kindness forward truly works wonders.
“We believe in lifting each other up is the key to success and all groups coming together to help each other, especially in times of need; like the impact of the recent floods.
“We have helped the hundreds of evacuees within the hotels with hot food each night, and we want to put special mentions out to Eastern Pearl for their dedication to helping people impacted by the floods, as well as to Ice and a Slice for kindly donating hundreds of pizzas to the evacuees within the hotels too- Everyone loved them!”
Beth added: “We have been lucky enough to know Sophie Owen and her team within the Travelodge and we want to say that they truly are angels with invisible wings looking after the evacuees, and it is an honour for the Good Guys Group to have supported them.
“Also a shout out to Paul Humphreys and his partner Katie for going above and beyond to help us throughout this week! Paul has been our dedicated Good Guys van man helping to pick up and drop off many items to homes in need, and we have also been blessed with the help from Mike Ryder from Kings Church Warrington, plus Sean Wall, and Jayke Aspinall. All of whom we couldn’t lift and shift without their superhero strength!
“We have been overwhelmed with the hundreds of thank you and appreciation messages, plus Southworth Avenue took the time to give the team chocolates and flowers as a beautiful gesture for helping their street- our wonderful Trish Williams came with more mops and buckets which were like gold dust in the shops and every house was truly grateful (and this was kindly helped through the amazing Mel Jolley), and distributed out by the diamond duo Carole Watson and her partner Andy Watson.
“Good Guys want to take the time to tell every flood victim a message from our hearts to yours… we send all of our love to everyone, as well as to your friends and families too, as it has a knock-on effect to everyone. We will continue to do our utmost to help turn houses into homes again. Hundreds have homes have been helped already thanks to the Good Guys coming together to raise awareness of donations, plus the funding we have received from the incredible team at ASDA and CARE UK. Many people have lost so much, but have also gained so much as we now know our neighbours better than before, we will start to rebuild to come back even stronger, and through the kindness of others, many have found their faith in humanity restored. We will get through this as we are stronger by working together” added Beth.
Smart Storage, CEO, Chris Stevens said; “It’s a really difficult time for everyone at the moment and the awful weather and flooding we’ve seen on top of everything just makes a tough time even harder. When our Warrington store team mentioned the work that the Good Guys Group were up to in the streets and homes just around the corner from our store on Lythgoes Lane – I was impressed. My team was really keen to support the charity’s effort and it was easy to see how we could help out. So we’ve set aside a storage unit to take donations on behalf of the charity to help families replace items lost due to flood damage.
“We’re pleased to able to play a small part in our community and I really hope everyone gets back on their feet soon.”
You can donate toys, clothes, furniture or toiletries to the Good Guys Group and bring them to Smart Storage, Lygothes Lane, Warrington for storage prior to being taken to those affected by the recent floods and in need.
Beth added: “We couldn’t do what we do without the support of our nearly 10,000 members, hundreds of volunteers, our amazing admin, and the generosity of everyone whom kindly donates and supports our cause through our Facebook page and GoFund link www.gofundme.com/helpWA5 just as the wonderful member of our team Emily Bryant-Crawford says, “every little helps”.
“We would also very much like to thank every group we have worked with since the very beginning as we believe that ‘Teamwork makes the dream work’ and we always believe that we are all stronger when we work together.
“If anybody needs support reading this, please reach out to our Good Guys Group or many other great groups we can put you in touch with, as we are all only a message away from brightening your day!”