Jurgen Klopp calls Liverpool volunteers who made PPE during pandemic
The football fans-turned-volunteers, who made 48,000 visors during the crisis, received a phone call from the Liverpool manager.
Thursday 25 June 2020 15:53, UK
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has hailed the "unbelievable" grassroots community effort to make and supply PPE to health workers fighting COVID-19 on Merseyside.
As his team stands on the brink of winning the club's first league title in 30 years, Klopp took time to thank volunteers via a video call this week.
The Liverpool manager told them: "You see in the most important things it comes together.
"Showing the best in us, the best of the game, it is about the game and solidarity and togetherness... I couldn't thank you more."
A group of teachers in Wavertree, Liverpool, started making visors in the very early days of the coronavirus crisis and were soon overwhelmed by the demand from nurses, care home workers and other key staff on Merseyside.
One of the hub founders, John Parry, told the Liverpool manager in the video call: "We have manufactured as a group 48,000 PPE visors."
The hub has seen a core group of 50-60 volunteers who have given up their time to help.
"Just people pulling together to do things like delivering," Mr Parry said: "They are the unsung heroes.
"People turning up at the door saying, 'Right, where am I taking these deliveries to? I'll go and deliver to 15 care homes today.'"
In collaboration with the Fans Supporting Foodbanks group, they established the Merseyside PPE hub making and delivering protective equipment and scrubs for medical staff.
Everton fan Dave Kelly, one of the founders of Fans Supporting Foodbanks, told Klopp: "It's not charity - it's solidarity.
"It is what working class communities do... in times of adversity we do come together."
The hub also worked with football fan groups around the country to deliver PPE far beyond Merseyside.
Klopp told the volunteers: "Without people like you it would be much more difficult to deal with all the things that happen out there.
"We all live here and we want to have this area in as good a place as possible... thank-you very much for all that you have done."
This week the PPE hub is winding down its operation and hoping not to have to reopen again.
Klopp's side beat Crystal Palace 4-0 on Wednesday and require just two more points to secure their first title in 30 years.
If Manchester City fail to beat Chelsea tonight, that long wait would be over without Liverpool having to kick a ball.