This week we've given £1k to the Trussell Trust food bank charity, and are close to manufacturing face masks using spare tea towel material, which we'll also be donating to vulnerable groups. These are small contributions to a global problem - but even smaller actions than these can make a difference.

About six weeks ago, I was feeling quite anxious.

I was reading the news about this growing Covid-19 calamity, doing my own research, and concluding that things didn't look that great for humanity, in the short term at least.

Exponential growth graphs are things I loved to geek out on in school. Nowadays they scare me.

While I was frantically posting paracetamol and water purification tablets to my grandparents, worrying about Radical Tea Towel's survival, and adding a pack of yeast to my supermarket trolley in anticipation of living off stale Luke-made bread for weeks at a time, there were certainly many others out there who's attitude was more 'relaxed', to put it mildly.

In general I'm an optimist, and I can certainly see the benefit of staying calm. But I do find it difficult to take seriously those whose attitude to everything that ever happens in life is "dude, let's all just take a chill pill and things will fix themselves."

God save me from the chill-ax brigade.

Inaction, denial and paralysis are actually well-documented psychological responses to fear, but I've never wanted to be some ostrich with his head down a hole when the sandstorm hits.

Imagine Martin Luther King just woke up one day in the 60s, and after his morning prayer, kicked back with a spliff and dropped out of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, because hey, "calm down, all this talk of injustice is just making people anxious."

You're familiar with a little radical history by now, so you know that kind of approach didn't win many rights worth having.

If there's one thing I've learned from this whole Radical Tea Towel thing, it's that history's true radicals were people of "deeds, not words".

Put on your oxygen mask

MLK's calm spirituality - rather than turning him slothful and docile - spurred him to concrete action.

Perhaps, like me, you've also been on the more concerned side of things, simply because you're someone who gives a fig about the wider world and your fellow men/women.

All that said, anxiety and worry by itself, without action, is kind of pointless.

In the short term, I realised that reading news, sharing articles and debating with ostriches wasn't really helping anyone, and just keeping me on edge.

The first step, in any crisis, is to put your own oxygen mask on. Then you can think about helping others.

For years now, I've been telling myself I'd get into the habit of regular meditation, and then doing nothing about it. Well, about five weeks ago, I finally started. Just ten minutes a day, using a meditation app with a fancy gong sound at the beginning and end of my session.

35 days later and I'm still going (OK, I did miss one day in the middle!).

It removed that lump in my throat from six weeks ago. My shoulders relaxed a bit and I started feeling 'normal' again.

Well, I say normal, but I've been baking bread, which is not at all normal in my case and has my friends suggesting that I've been smoking yeast or something. I find it strangely satisfying (the bread-making, not the yeast-smoking...).

By the end of last month, I was able to start thinking clearly, and practically: what could Radical Tea Towel do to play its part in the global struggle against this virus?

For some 'chillax-ers', that might sound like a ridiculous question. We're not doctors, or epidemiologists, or ventilator manufacturers.

But there are some things, however small, that are very much within our - and your - ability. And by starting small, you slowly start to realise what's possible.

Time for action: what are we doing?

I can talk. Occasionally, my chat is half entertaining. So I signed up to the NHS's Volunteer Responders initiative, along with now 750,000 others in the UK. My job is to occasionally call a 'vulnerable person', who might not otherwise have social contact, and check up on them.

(The scheme's been paused temporarily, because so many people signed up, but I've left the link there in case it's something you might be interested in if it re-opens. Never again say that it's only older generations who care about their neighbours.)

Meanwhile, Pete, our resident historian at Radical Tea Towel, had the idea of writing blogs about radicals from history who'd coped with periods of isolation. I know he's been keeping many of you inspired and entertained, because you keep writing to us to let us know (thank you).

Today, I'm really pleased to announce that Radical Tea Towel will be donating £1,000 to food bank charity the Trussell Trust, as part of our ongoing giveaway initiative.

Many of you have supported us over the past month with an order on our site, and well, we're keen to pass on the love.

We're a small business entering a recession, but whatever the risks for us in months to come, we know there are others out there who today struggle to put food on their plates. They could do with a hand.

A hand from us - or maybe from you.

Turning on the sewing machines

Being useful, of course, doesn't just have to involve money and time. Sometimes you can bring a bit of expertise to the table.

We've been in discussions with our manufacturers in the Midlands, who are operating on a skeleton staff right now, about making face masks using excess tea towel material.

These won't be surgical-grade masks or taking material from urgent medical supplies. But it turns out that tea towel material is actually pretty good at preventing inhalation of lots of bad particles, and is certainly better than nothing.

There's a good chance that facemasks could become both a recommendation and a requirement for the general population in the near future.

Our plan is to use the revenue from direct-to-customer mask sales to supply 'forgotten' groups like homeless shelters and food banks, who might otherwise have to use frontline funds to protect their staff and visitors.

The designs will be simple and tasteful, things like the dove pattern on our Desmond Tutu tea towel.

Watch this space.

Think small

Earlier this month, in the 2-metre distancing queue for the Post Office while I waited to post Radical Tea Towel's US tax return, I got chatting to 87-year-old Mr Baradi, a suit-and-tie Hungarian man who'd lived through the Budapest Uprising of 1956 (the year of my grandparents' marriage - that paracetamol I sent them last month should keep them going for now!).

Mr Baradi was at the Post Office to collect his state pension. We spoke about history, politics, and his Covid-19 conspiracy theories.

I let him go in first. That was my guilt showing, I suspect.

As he left, I lectured Mr Baradi about handwashing after using his bank card on the chip and pin machine. He laughed and reminded me he could pick up the virus from the cash in his hand.

I've passed Mr Baradi in the street since then and said hello. He says he 'always puts his health first', so he isn't worried about the local spike in Covid-19 cases.

I hope he's all right.

Maybe you know a Mr Baradi to say hello to, too.

Small, I know.

But don't go around saying there's nothing you can do right now.

You're not powerless, and as one of almost 50,000 people on the Radical Tea Towel email list, I know you can think of at least one person who needs a call, a knock on their door or window.

Good luck out there, and do keep your head above ground - without losing it entirely.