After 4 years of running our brilliant Friday Foodshare, we have decided to close for a coupleof months in order to step back and rebuild a more sustainable service. We will be closed on Fridays from the 19th April, looking to reopen on Fridays before the Summer holidays. We haven’t yet decided what our next phase of Friday life will look like so please watch this space.
Our community cafe on Mondays and Thursdays will continue as normal during this time of reflection and planning.
We’re really excited about what else we can do together in this place that we love. But we also want to take a moment to acknowledge what we’ve done together as a community over these years.
What have we achieved together as a community over these years?
In 2020, in the midst of the covid crisis, with people isolating at home, unable to get food for themselves, our community cafe became a distribution hub, working with the council, Woodhouse Community Centre and Hyde Park Source to deliver food parcels and serve outdoors distanced queues throughout the week. Working with volunteers 3 days a week from March 2020 - June 2021, we gave out an average of 157 food parcels a week.
In 2021, we resumed cafe service on 2 days of the week, and welcomed people back into the building. Our Foodshare was reduced to one day a week, serving an average of 76 households.
In 2022, we served an average of 89 households a week.
In 2023, we served an average of 193 households a week
What has 2024 been like for our foodshare so far?
In 2024 so far, we have served an average of 233 households a week - 284 on our busiest day! This is totally beyond our capacity, far exceeding what we did in the pandemic, even when the whole week was devoted to this work.
We’re glad we’ve been able to do this, but hate that it has been necessary. We want to escape the cycle of providing a crisis response to a chronic problem.We would love to spend more time building mutual,empowering relationships and working with our neighbours to challenge a system that keeps pushing them into food insecurity and poverty. This way of working disempowers so many. As such we’re taking some time to rethink what we’re doing.
The foodshare has been a joy (and a trial!). It has been a massive privilege to work so hard with so many amazing people, all pulling together for our community. The generosity and commitment we get to witness is astounding – in time and money and skills. We’re hugely proud of what we’ve done together - 25882 nutritious, culturally appropriate, personalised food parcels; and a community of mutual support and care and love which is beyond measure or value.
THANK YOU so much to anyone and everyone that makes this happen! It takes so, so many people to make this happen, and we are so, so grateful for all the support we receive.
We’re super committed to our mission - to be a place where community, connection, food and opportunities can be accessed no matter who you are and what money you have, while saving lots of food from landfill. We’re not going anywhere, just taking a breath.
As always, a huge amount of love from us.
The Rainbow Junktion team
Nic, Annmarie, Heston ( & Emily!)
<3 <3 <3