A determined courier has been praised by customers after giving hours of her own time to ensure they received their Christmas parcels.
Gemma Grundy is a courier for EVRi (formerly Hermes) who covers Trimley, Walton and Felixstowe. Many customers in these areas have been experiencing delays in their deliveries for a number of weeks.
“There are thousands of people in Felixstowe – but there are only eight of us on my team. We just can’t keep up,” Ms Grundy said.
Her community district manager, Jo Hassall, agreed. “There is a lack of drivers everywhere. I think it’s due to the cost of living and rising prices of fuel. If we had vans, it might be different, but we’re all in our own cars,” she said.
While the backlog of parcels was growing steadily, the shortage of drivers meant that there was no way of clearing it during working hours.
Ms Grundy came up with the idea of scheduled ‘drops’, parking her van in a central location and circulating a list of addresses on Facebook groups.
Customers from these addresses were then able to come with proof of identification, and collect their parcels in person.
In the past week, Ms Grundy has spent two evenings in Walton and Trimley St Martin meeting customers and distributing parcels with the help of friends.
The first drop in Walton Hall Drive on Tuesday evening lasted through the night.
“I’m absolutely shattered,” said Ms Grundy. “We were there from about 7.30pm until 3am.”
The second drop took place on Thursday night in the car park of the Hand in Hand pub in Trimley St Martin.
In the two hours this newspaper spent there, around a hundred people arrived to pick up packages.
Many even stepped in to help.
“Gemma is amazing,” said one resident, with others in agreement. “A lesser person would have just given up.”
Ms Grundy said that she was not expecting to make any money from these scheduled drops.
“Every night I clear the excess of packages, I won’t be profiting. Once I know how much I have made for these nights, I will make a donation to charity,” she said.
The charity she has chosen is Kitty Kat Rescue based in Stowmarket.
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