00:00Good morning Cor, morning Stephen. Good morning.
00:08I'm very excited. How are you both? Good morning, okay? Yeah, good, thank you.
00:12Great, thank you. We've been having a little chat, so it's fine, thanks.
00:16And the Peak minibus, which we use to transport all the food and the meals and the wellbeing packs out
00:21to the different communities across Glasgow.
00:24McKenna, am I right in saying you started off being supported by Peak and now the CEO?
00:28You are, yes. This is actually our 20th birthday this year, so we will be celebrating that at some point,
00:36I'm sure.
00:37What a brilliant rise though, from being helped by the charity right the way through the system to become the
00:42CEO.
00:42I think that's absolutely fantastic. And Michaela, what sort of particular challenges have your service users been facing with coronavirus?
00:49Tell me a little bit about what's been happening up there.
00:51We work with a lot of single parent families as well, so families that may not have family support or
00:56community support as well.
00:57Also with the crisis and the lockdown and kids being out of school and in homes, it's been pretty difficult
01:02for our families.
01:03Our families don't have disposable income to go in bulk by, so that was one of the first instances.
01:08So basic food items they couldn't get, so we've been able to provide that.
01:12Did the National Emergency Trust funding really help you? Did it come quick enough? And do you need more?
01:19Yeah, it absolutely helped us. So as well as the food, a lot of requests were for things like baby
01:25food, it was for nappies, it was basic sanitary products for girls and young women as well.
01:30So getting that funding allowed us to bulk by that, you know, the days are going by so quickly and
01:36it feels long, but they're going by so quickly.
01:38So we need to be rapid in our approach to things.
01:42Cor, maybe I could ask you just to tell me a little bit about what the charity does and how
01:46maybe the ADT has been sort of helping you recently.
01:49I'll cut a very long story short, but yes, seven years ago, I, sepsis picked a fight with me and
01:56looked like he was winning.
01:57But last minute got a reprieve and here I am. But the downside was I lost my legs and my
02:03hands.
02:04So my brothers and their wisdom decided that could be a purpose for me. And we set up Find Your
02:10Feet six years ago.
02:12So originally it was just to try and chat to people and fill in those blanks and tell people what
02:16to expect.
02:17And it's just grown, can you see arms and legs? It's just grown beyond belief.
02:21We have about 60 clubs or we had about 60 clubs a month.
02:26And what's it, what's it sort of been like to support everyone virtually with the Service Corps?
02:31Has it been, has that been a challenge? Can you, can you still have some sort of, or enough contacts
02:37with them to be able to reassure and to make sure everyone's feeling supported?
02:43For a good percentage of them, yes, absolutely. There's a good few that find the whole Zoom call, particularly on
02:50a bigger group. It's not so bad when it's small like this.
02:52Charlie's just popped up on his camera. He's busy preparing something delicious by the next thing. Hi, Charlie.
02:57Hello. Can we hear you? Hello. Yeah, I'm good.
03:00Good, Charlie. Sorry, your time doesn't stop you. You still got prepared meals. How many are you doing?
03:05Well, we are touching about 4,000 freshly prepared meals a week. It's actually, it's a, it's a, we have
03:11support from a couple of local businesses, like McKayla was saying.
03:14So the van, the van can do between sort of two and 400 a day.
03:17How many meals, Charlie, do you have to cook yourself a day?
03:20The record, oh, I think the record we did with one other actually was probably about 900.
03:26900 meals in a day?
03:28It's possible.
03:28Stephen, I gather you, how many years ago was it you came off your motorbike?
03:331979 I came off my motorbike.
03:35And Stephen, it's obviously, it's Mental Health Awareness Week this week.
03:39Have you yourself had to battle some mental health issues through your injuries and things like that?
03:43Because obviously, again, totally understandable that your life kind of gets turned upside down within a moment.
03:49How have you, how have you personally dealt with that?
03:51Just a couple of years ago, not long after I joined Finding Your Feet, I found myself really in quite
03:57a deep hole.
04:00Really suffering badly from depression, anxiety, and I wasn't coping well at all.
04:07Suicidal if I'm being honest, you know, and the West of Scotland male, you know, you don't really want to
04:14show weakness or reach out for help.
04:16It's saved my life, it's been absolutely wonderful, and I'm in a much better place now because of it.
04:23Good Stephen, I'm glad to hear that.
04:24And what was the biggest bit of support for you, Stephen?
04:27Was it Michelle, just Michelle listening and you being able to sort of talk to her about your problems?
04:32Or was there other areas, things that she provided you that were, you know, a really useful support?
04:37Because one of the things we're trying to encourage people to do is just have that first conversation.
04:41And I just wondered for you, that first conversation with Michelle, did it, did the dark clouds lift a little
04:45bit?
04:46And you think to yourself, Michael, I can talk about this, it's okay.
04:48Yeah, I think so. I think just being able to reach out initially to make that appointment, you know, was
04:57the massive step.
04:58And then a big burden was, you know, lifted right away. And the fact that I could share with somebody,
05:06you know, who wasn't judging me and changed my thinking as well.
05:12Because there's a lot of guilt and blame and stuff.
05:15Hopefully inspired a few home cooks and it's certainly taken the pressure off parents, for sure.
05:21You'll know yourself, the hardest time is dinner time.
05:23Yeah. It depends what's on the table though, Charlie, isn't it?
05:28And that's the thing, if you put something on, if your parents put something on that the children love, you
05:31know, dinner time goes very well.
05:33But if you put something on the table they don't want to do, that's another ballgame.
05:37Individuals react in all sorts of different ways, don't they?
05:39And you can never quite tell how everyone's going to react to that bad news when they wake up and
05:44realise that they're missing a limb.
05:46It's something that I've tried to understand and imagine how some of the guys come back from operations and things
05:52like that, how they go through that process and understand it.
05:56Because your life must change, you know, in a second.
05:58And so, thank goodness, you know, finding your feet is there to kind of look after all those people who,
06:04like you guys, who've suddenly woken up and realised that, you know, life is very different now.
06:09But Corey, if I may say so, you are a huge inspiration from what you've achieved and what you've set
06:14up.
06:14I'm so pleased to have the chance to speak to you and know that there is someone out there doing
06:20phenomenal work for those who have lost their limbs in Scotland.
06:25And I'm so pleased the NET have found you and you found them and that that relationship is helping.
06:31It's lovely to speak to you both. I'm conscious Charlie needs to get on and prepare a load of meals.
06:35But well done to both of you giving up your time and putting in so much or so many hours
06:40to support everyone around Glasgow.
06:43It's really fantastic what's going on up there. And I wish you guys the very best.
06:47And again, as I said to other NET projects, I hope when I find myself up in Glasgow in the
06:52near future, I can come and see you guys in person and congratulate you on all the hard work you've
06:57been doing.
06:57Thank you very much.
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