Maybush Church, Southampton, has been working alongside Southampton City Mission to serve its local community with a much needed membership food club, open to anyone living within the postcodes of SO16 4 and SO16 9. Hosted in All Saints’ Church Hall, there is a room for food storage and a back up store room. The PCC has agreed to pay the increased electricity costs for running the fridges and freezers – this was looking like about £1500 per year before the summer – now it is much more which is a challenge for a parish such as ours!
The partnership works as follows: Southampton City Mission (SCM) deliver the food from their warehouse, and some food is supplied by Fareshare and other partners; they fill any gaps in the supply by purchasing food from local supermarkets – at present this tends to be fruit, vegetables and milk, but it can vary from week to week depending on the donation levels. They also supply period products and household cleaning items. The church then hosts the market and supplies the volunteers to receive, check and sort the stock, and then man the market which runs every Wednesday 10am-1pm. (SCM also provides all necessary training to volunteers.) The team is made up of about 20 volunteers, the majority of whom come every week. Over half the volunteers live in the parish, so they are very aware of the community being served, and it has been easy to build meaningful relationships that stretch much deeper than providing food.
Some of the enterprising volunteers make jam and chutney from the leftover fruit which cannot be passed on to any other organisations; another volunteer also makes delicious fudge. All these are sold locally to buy additional toiletries and household products. Nothing is wasted – leftovers that will not last until the next week are shared with other SCM food projects.
Obviously the cost of living crisis has caused a drop in donations to the whole food club and marketplace system. SCM have been holding their breath for the harvest donations to come and fill a warehouse that has never been so empty at this time of year. Our PCC has agreed that all the funds raised by the Christmas Fayre this year will go to covering the additional expenses incurred by running the food club (mainly utility bills).
Rev Claire Robinson, Curate at Maybush Church
