by The Courtyard Pantry Enterprise
The Courtyard Pantry is a food project offering high quality food at low cost to the Glasgow community. Founded in 2021 to combat food insecurity during the pandemic, membership in the pantry is open to all, regardless of circumstances. It costs £1 to join and membership lasts as long as needed. In 2023, Toshie’s Cafe was established as the next phase of The Courtyard Pantry Enterprise, to provide affordable meals and snacks, especially for those at risk of isolation or disadvantage. The cafe also provides volunteering, training and work experience opportunities for people in the local community who face barriers to secure employment.
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Pauline Town
From inside the Station Hotel Pub in Ashton-under-Lyne, Manchester, Pauline Town runs the We Shall Overcome (WSO) project. It is a solidarity movement that supports people who are homeless or in need of assistance, especially those affected by the cost of living crisis. Town puts on live music to raise money, leading a team of volunteers who make around 120 packed lunches every day. Every week she provides food parcels to pensioners who cannot go to their local shops. Baile refers to those who need other local groups or organizations to provide temporary accommodation, it supports finding permanent accommodation and encouraged the Baile House, which was restored and named after the local council to 20 beds provide for short-term needs.
Incredible Edibles: Right to Grow
Incredible Edible, a network of more than 150 community growing groups that started in 2008, has been campaigning for the ‘Right to Grow’ law for the past few years. This would enable people to grow their own food on disused land, such as roadsides and sterile lawns. In October 2023, Hull became the first city in the UK to support people growing their own food. IE is now calling for the law to be adopted nationally, having drafted a bill. The group has also started hosting a Right to Grow network for people to work together to make this law across the country.
The Fritwell Community Fridge collects unsold, surplus or leftover foods from supermarkets and distributors, as well as donations. The food is available to any residents in the North Oxfordshire Three Parishes area, and each year the service provides additional support to vulnerable families at the local school, in the form of Christmas gifts and hampers. They support 25 families per week with food parcels, and 75+ families come to the fridge every week. Their nominator wrote: “Kerry Mellor and Jenny who started this are a credit to the community they serve.”
Alexandra Rose Charity
Since 2014, the Alexandra Rose Charity has tackled the twin problems of food poverty and diet-related diseases by providing vouchers for fruit and vegetables to pregnant mothers and those with children under four years of them. The vouchers are used in local markets (below), and the charity says that 64% of children from families receiving Rose Vouchers eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, up from just 7%.
Tessa Clarke
Tessa Clarke founded OLIO, a free app that connects users with unwanted food from local families or businesses with neighbors who live nearby who like it. There are now over seven million users who have shared more than 150 million pieces of food. A team of around 104,000 volunteers around the world collect unused food from supermarkets and homes, saving 22 billion liters of water and avoiding 171,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions. OLIO also produces content to encourage users to save money and be more climate conscious.
Resurrection bit
In Harrogate, Resurrected Bites redistributes food that would otherwise be wasted to people in need. The non-profit has pay-as-you-go cafes and grocers where people can, for a very small amount, choose from a wide range of fresh, frozen and storage cupboard items. They refer to other services that help them and they also lend an ear. Their nominator wrote: “Harrogate is seen as a rich town but so many people are living in food poverty. Without the help of Resurrected Bites, hundreds of people in the area would have gone hungry. Clients who used the service felt the impact of being able to shop fairly and healthily and maintain their independence.”
Sabrina Khan
Khan is the founder of Maasi’s, a cafe and restaurant that employs women of color, all of whom are home cooks who have never worked in paid employment before. The space Maasi provides for these women has “enabled them to improve themselves, build their confidence and empower them”. Her nominator wrote: “Sabrina was not a chef, and she had no business experience, but she has perseverance and the business was successful. There are many barriers to employment faced by women of color both within and outside of their culture and Sabrina has provided a platform for these women where none existed before. She is motivated.”
Our Forgotten Neighbor
For people who are sleeping rough, struggling with mental health, on low incomes, or refugees, Our Forgotten Neighbors in London is a lifeline. They offer a street kitchen and food bank in Finsbury Park, with a DJ, every Friday. It is run by husband and wife team Victoria and Vincent Barnett, who receive donations from supermarkets such as M&S, Tesco and Sainsbury’s, and fundraise. As of August 2020, they have provided over 25,000 meals. In an interview with Big Issue, Vincent told us: “There are people sleeping on the street outside our front doors. They are our neighbors too. We cannot forget them. We have to pull together and help these people.”
This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalized people an opportunity to earn an income.
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