‘I wanted to help in any way I could’: the businesses going the extra mile during the Covid-19 crisis

Tanisha Broady has spent more than 20 years working as a chef, cooking on a Caribbean cruise liner, for the Ritz-Carlton in Jamaica, and for the Hilton hotel in Croydon, and catering for 2,000 staff a day at the University of Cambridge.

But it was only when she opened her own small cafe on Cherry Hinton Road in Cambridge that Broady truly found her niche, serving locals a blend of British cafe staples and Jamaican classics.

“I called it Rock of Virtue, which stands for my aim of being a rock for the community, and virtuous and loyal to them,” Broady says.

Since signing the lease in March 2019 – “a joyful moment” – Broady’s cafe has become a hub for the local community.

“Before lockdown I had two regulars, Michael and David, who would come in for tea and coffee, and if I wasn’t busy I’d sit and play dominos with them,” Broady says. “Michael told me he couldn’t find that anywhere else – a place you can go and feel so welcome and have a chat.”

By the time lockdown was announced, almost a year to the day Broady signed her lease, she’d already expanded her horizons, applying to set up a branch of her company with non-profit status that would help young people gain work experience.

“Local kids told me they couldn’t get a job without work experience, but that no one would give it to them in the first place,” Broady says. “That really touched me, so I’ve registered to be able to help youngsters train for an NVQ up to level 3.”

Broady heard that her non-profit application had been successful just a few days before lockdown was announced. Covid-19 immediately threw both her plans to support the community and her business into turmoil.

“It had a massive effect on us, and it wasn’t easy to close with no idea, at that point, of how we’d get any help to survive,” Broady says. “I work with a volunteer, Evelyn, who’s 77 and has been working in the cafe for over 20 years. She owned the place until her husband sadly passed away, then continued working there with the people who took over before me.

“The cafe means everything to her – it’s what gets her up in the morning, and she’s like family to me now. Calling her to say the cafe was shutting was hard. I told her not to worry, but couldn’t help worrying myself.”

Yet after facing numerous hurdles throughout her career, Broady wasn’t likely to sit back and let concerns overtake her. Instead, she got in touch with a local church that ran a scheme called Love Your Neighbour.

“I told them: ‘I’ll help in any way I can. But what I’d really love to do is cook some soup!’ I bought enough ingredients to make 50 portions of soup a day for a week, and started cooking at home to feed local people who were vulnerable or isolating.”

Within a week, Love Your Neighbour was able to add to Broady’s regular shops with food donations from local supermarkets, as well as offers of help and money from volunteers.

Broady could then cook up to 60 portions of soup a day, which were added to hampers distributed to those in need around Cambridge.

“It made a massive difference to me personally – I had to stay busy and focused for my children, and it was a great distraction at a hard time,” Broady says. “When the [UK] government started talking about their plans to help and support businesses, things started looking up, and my landlords allowed me an 11-week rent break.

“I also set the cafe up on Flipdish, an online ordering hub that takes a smaller cut than most delivery services. With people around me losing their jobs, it pushed me to fight even harder to keep the cafe, so I can eventually achieve my dream of helping youngsters gain work experience.”

Currently, Broady is preparing to reopen the cafe on 4 July in line with UK government guidelines put in place to help businesses reopen safely. She’s rearranging seating, ordering social-distancing signage and explaining to Evelyn why masks are now strictly necessary. “It can be tricky getting elderly people to change to a new routine, so it’s about reassuring her that the measures are for her own good,” she says.

In Scotland, One Year No Beer is another business which has been helping people during lockdown. It’s been offering NHS and frontline workers the chance to join the company’s 28 Day Challenge for free and transform their relationship with alcohol.

Co-founded by Ruari Fairbairns, the business has so far helped 70,000 members across 90 countries to eliminate or moderate their drinking.

“Originally from the Isle of Mull, I grew up watching friends and family celebrate, commiserate and congratulate with alcohol,” Fairbairns explains. “As an adult, I got a job as an oil broker – the more I partied, the more successful I was. I was never a problem drinker, but it was part of that lifestyle.

“Then in 2013, I started meditating, and developed an awareness that alcohol was causing me more trouble than I realised, so I decided to take a 90-day break from booze. I was blown away – I was fitter, faster, healthier and happier, and niggling health issues, from occasional headaches to a decade of IBS, disappeared. I realised I’d hit on something huge.”

Along with fellow broker Andy Ramage, Fairbairns launched One Year No Beer’s first challenge in 2016. He handed in his notice in 2017 to completely focus on his business, and today, paying members receive daily motivational emails and access to content encouraging them to change their relationship with alcohol, and embrace healthy routines such as gratitude, regular exercise and meditation.

“After we launched I’d read the letters we got with tears in my eyes saying: ‘Look what we’re doing here – this is amazing,’” Fairbairns says. “I had a letter from someone’s son saying: ‘I’ve got my dad back’, and we’ve been told about multiple One Year No Beer babies.”

When lockdown struck, Fairbairns knew his business had a role to play in helping the country through the coronavirus crisis. “When there’s more anxiety people drink more, and the first sign of that was NHS staff telling us that One Year No Beer was a lifeline for them,” Fairbairns says. “I realised we could do something to help, so we looked at what we needed to do to give our 28 Day Challenge away for free.”

To pay for the scheme, all 17 members of staff agreed to a three-month pay cut – “We all wanted to be able to stand up proudly after the crisis and say we bent over backwards to help people during a difficult time, and everyone was rewarded with equity in the business,” Fairbairns says.

Related: 'I needed to do something': the veteran who found a new life as a volunteer during coronavirus

Within the first week 7,000 people, mainly NHS workers, had signed up. In response, existing members were also encouraged to offer their support.

“We could see some of them wobbling too, and it was clear we needed to do more for our community,” Fairbairns says. “So we asked members who’d reached 90 days sober to support new members, in order to help NHS staff do their job better. We had around 2,500 responses – when you’ve got that many volunteers, you can help a lot of people.”

One Year No Beer is also currently crowdfunding, raising an incredible £1.4m in 24 hours to go towards product development such as building an app, and looking into diversifying into areas such as gambling and technology addiction. Although the company’s Edinburgh-based office isn’t reopening in the near future, for Fairbairns, the “new normal” has meant embracing the opportunity to help more people, and develop new products.

Broady, meanwhile, plans to continue making soup for as long as her neighbours need it. “I’m cautious about reopening, but also very excited,” she says. “I’m sure Michael and David will come in for their usual chat, because they love the atmosphere. But we’ll have to stay away from the dominos for a little while!”

This advertiser content was paid for by the UK government. All together is a government-backed initiative tasked with informing the UK about the Covid-19 pandemic