How vintage radios are helping vulnerable Leeds people keep connected during lockdown

East Leeds FM radio station (ELFM) has partnered with Seacroft Friends and Neighbours and other organisations to gift more than dozen vintage style radios to local care homes and seniors living alone.

The radios are part of an undertaking by Chapel FM Arts Centre, which runs ELFM, to generate 75 hours each week of locally-produced programmes designed to keep people informed of local issues and stories, share uplifting art and create a record of life in the city during the pandemic.

Kate Taverner from Seacroft Friends and Neighbours said of the radio donations: “The older residents in Seacroft we work with are so lifted up by the fact that they can now turn on their radios and hear people from their own neighbourhoods talking in such a direct way about things happening right here, right now.

"What ELFM is doing really brings some good cheer and a sense that we’re all in this together. It’s also such a treat for people to receive these lovely radios as unexpected gifts.”

The staff and many volunteers from ELFM have been creating a block of radio programmes each morning that speak to the particular concerns, interests, experience and artistic tastes

of older residents from east Leeds.

Coun David Jenkins (Lab, Killingbeck and Seacroft), who has been on the front lines working with a coalition of local organisations providing food, medicine and other essentials said: “Chapel FM has been a lifeline for the communities of East Leeds during the COVID-19 crisis and now it is on FM its reach has broadened and it has also enabled many elderly people to be given FM retro radios to brighten up their day.”

Among the programmes being offered on East Leeds FM is a weekly Sunday Service featuring leaders of various local religious congregations. These inlude regulars Reverend Helen

White of Crossgates and Seacroft Methodists and Anglican vicar Dominic Mughal.

He said: “People in our congregation have found the Sunday Service very helpful. Their feedback is very positive. Many thanks to ELFM for these broadcasts!”

Anyone wishing to help make more radios available for residents of care homes or older residents living alone in isolation should visit: www.chapelfm.co.uk or call 0113 22 55 944

By making a donation of £5 someone will be joined with five other people to make it possible for one radio to be gifted isolated people the community. A donation of £30 will make

someone a sole donor of a radio and £150 will allow for five radios to be given.

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