A charity set up to help residents and businesses who have suffered because of coronavirus has so far raised £640,000 and has paid out £109,000.

The Manx Solidarity Fund has given grants to 40 of the 118 applications it has so far received.

Now the fund is raising its profile to try to attract more people in need of help to come forward.

The fund, whose patron is Lieutenant Governor Sir Richard Gozney, was established in response to the financial and human challenges arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Melanie Kermeen, one of the voluntary directors, said her focus was to encourage applications and awareness of the fund and ’that we are here to help’.

She said: ’What we are finding is that people, some who are particularly in desperate need, are quite reluctant to apply. They are almost a little bit apologetic.

’We want to get the message out that coronavirus has obviously affected most people and there is no need to apologise, we are here to help and that is what the fund has been set up for.’

message

The message applied equally to both individuals and businesses.

Ms Kermeen added: ’Our logo is of three strong hands, the fund is here to give a hand up to those who have been negatively impacted and trying to mitigate the negative impact from Covid-19.’

Ms Kermeen confirmed that as of Tuesday this week the fund, which was launched in early April, had so far received 118 applications of which just over 40 have been successful and paid out, although there were still some in the process of being considered.

Ms Kermeen said that the fund is ’not in an hurry to pay out because we don’t believe that we have seen the worst of the effects unfortunately and we are very cautious because we have a very rigorous and robust applications criteria and a team dedicated to reviewing the applications that come in.

’The five members of the applications board meet every Tuesday and are independent of the other areas of the charity.’

She stressed that applicants should be reassured it is a confidential process and ’the criteria is quite strict but the more information applicants can give and the more detailed they can be about the impact from Covid-19 and what they need the funds for, it will be favourably looked upon.’

Ms Kermeen said it was important to get help out to people ’who need it most, making sure those people know about us and know there is help available, especially if they have slipped through the cracks. There are examples of real cases of hardship’.

Local athlete Christian Varley ran 19 marathons in 19 days in aid of the fund, raising more than £100,000.