Community crisis veg boxes

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Together with our home pub the Plough, we have mobilised a free delivery service for our community during the current crisis. We are providing a free fruit+veg box as well as home-cooked meals to folks who are vulnerable, self-isolating or struggling financially due to the lockdown.

We’ve been receiving requests through our online form as well as referrals from the National Food Service Helpline, Aid Box Community, Project Mama and various other organisations representing vulnerable people in the city. There is no judgment of ‘need’, we aim to get a box to anyone who asks for one.

We’ve been doing delivery runs twice a week for 9 weeks now and have so far delivered over 4,200 fruit+veg boxes and over 1,600 cooked meals.

As the demand increases, we have now been joined by the Lion, Chelsea, Pipe and Slippers and Star & Garter pubs as packing venues, each bringing their own community of volunteers and each adding around 100 boxes per day to our capacity.

This is all thanks to generous donations received through our Fundsurfer page, a £5000 grant from the Quartet Foundation’s Coronavirus Response Fund, plus an ever-growing and very dedicated army of volunteer coordinators, packers and delivery drivers as well as various donations of food, space and equipment*. The club has agreed to donate up to £1000 to help keep those boxes coming.

We are not asking for payment for the food but will take donations from those who want to give. All info on how to order, donate or volunteer is on our Fundsurfer page. Please share and donate if you can: 

www.fundsurfer.com/crowdfund/community-care-package

As each delivery run costs around £1250 and demand is growing, we need to keep the donations rolling in so we can continue providing this essential service for our community over the coming weeks.

£5 will cover the cost of a box, £10 will also pay for a box for somebody else. Everyone involved is donating their time so all donations go to buying produce. We are coordinating and sharing with various organisations, such as Bristol Outreach Services for the Homeless (BOSH), FoodCycle, Helping Homeless Believe, BASE cafe, Wild Goose and Coexist Community Kitchen, to make sure that no surplus food is wasted and that food reaches those most in need.

*Thanks also to: All Hallows Hall, who have given us free use of their hall as a packing centre; the Volunteer Tavern who have let us use their kitchen while the Plough’s is being refurbished; Essential Wholefoods who have donated food; Hobbs House bakery who are donating bread; Nibly Leaves who have donated salad; a lab at UWE who are supplying us with a food-safe sterilisation solution; Linner, Izzy and Peg who have been at their sewing machines frantically sewing double-layer cotton masks so that we can do our best to prevent the spread of infection; Three Wise Monkeys, Hugos, Pawsons and Ashton Fruit Shop who are providing us with crates for the veg boxes..

If you want more information on what else is being done around Bristol, the Bristol Cable is collating an online database of organisations who are providing food or other support during the crisis, as well as volunteering and support groups.