Founder Sanjay Lobo is appointed MBE

Founder and chief on-hander, Sanjay Lobo, has been awarded an MBE for services to Older People, particularly during Covid-19.

OnHand is an app that makes doing social and eco good easy. Since launching in 2019, OnHand has grown from helping a few people in London to helping tens of thousands all across the UK. The app is now used by 100’s of businesses giving their employees an easy way to help tackle some of the biggest issues facing society today.

As we sip a celebratory cuppa at the news of Sanjay’s MBE, let’s take a look back at our whirlwind journey since launch and take a glance at what’s in store for the future. 

A need that was personal

The need for a product like OnHand was personal for our founder, Sanjay. His dad had Parkinsons and was in his late 70’s. He had carers (who were wonderful) but they were charging £20+vat for shopping.....and the total shopping costs were only £10 a week! Sanjay thought he couldn’t be the only one with this problem and OnHand was born. It turned out his Dad wasn’t the only one needing help. Very quickly a steady number were using OnHand for help with the simple stuff.

As Covid-19 hit…

In early 2020 as Covid-19 hit the UK. Very quickly there was an overwhelming demand for help across London. OnHand started receiving 1000’s of calls per week from individuals unable to get food or medication, from relatives as far away as Australia needing someone to help their parents and from councils and charities who were overrun with spiralling food parcel costs.

But it wasn’t all bad news

There was also an amazing surge in the number of people wanting to help and do good with over 10,000+ downloading the app with even the likes of Princess Eugenie talking about OnHand and how Londoners could use it to help out.