A community-led emergency response to food precarity
A long thoughtful piece written by Will Golding a Bridgend Farmhouse Trustee in 2020
The first two paragraphs are copied here and you can read and download the full document below that text.
It's nearly the middle of May and right now at Bridgend Farmhouse we'd usually be meeting for our weekly community meal, working our kitchen garden, building our bothy, developing new summer courses and events, and starting to run cycle rides in the local woodlands that would end back at the Farmhouse community cafe. Instead, like everywhere else, we've had to suspend our regular activities. But that doesn’t mean all our work has stopped. However, with the help of a team of very dedicated volunteers, we have converted the Farmhouse into a local emergency food cooking and distribution centre, a bike hire and mechanics hub for key workers, and started to run online courses and provide phone support and activity packs.
We are entering the eighth week of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, and our seventh week of delivering emergency food parcels (currently around 1,000 meals per day to local self-isolating residents and others who are unable to access healthy, nutritious food). There has been an incredible response on the ground from individuals and groups within our communities to ensuring there is immediate and critical support available at this time. From food and deliveries, to a friendly call, to activity packs, to new online groups. The impact of COVID-19 restrictions and self-isolation have exposed cracks in the system and have reinforced the stresses and pressure that certain people were already under, whilst also exposing people to new economic, financial and wellbeing impacts and precarity. However, we have also seen incredible examples of the solidarity, care and compassion that people are showing towards each other in these times of crisis.
A long thoughtful piece written by Will Golding a Bridgend Farmhouse Trustee in 2020
The first two paragraphs are copied here and you can read and download the full document below that text.
It's nearly the middle of May and right now at Bridgend Farmhouse we'd usually be meeting for our weekly community meal, working our kitchen garden, building our bothy, developing new summer courses and events, and starting to run cycle rides in the local woodlands that would end back at the Farmhouse community cafe. Instead, like everywhere else, we've had to suspend our regular activities. But that doesn’t mean all our work has stopped. However, with the help of a team of very dedicated volunteers, we have converted the Farmhouse into a local emergency food cooking and distribution centre, a bike hire and mechanics hub for key workers, and started to run online courses and provide phone support and activity packs.
We are entering the eighth week of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, and our seventh week of delivering emergency food parcels (currently around 1,000 meals per day to local self-isolating residents and others who are unable to access healthy, nutritious food). There has been an incredible response on the ground from individuals and groups within our communities to ensuring there is immediate and critical support available at this time. From food and deliveries, to a friendly call, to activity packs, to new online groups. The impact of COVID-19 restrictions and self-isolation have exposed cracks in the system and have reinforced the stresses and pressure that certain people were already under, whilst also exposing people to new economic, financial and wellbeing impacts and precarity. However, we have also seen incredible examples of the solidarity, care and compassion that people are showing towards each other in these times of crisis.
