Dear John

Your Local Pantry: A triumph of community resilience, offering dignity, choice and hope in a time of crisis

In the midst of the dark times, the rapid growth of the Your Local Pantry network across the country offers a beacon of hope, demonstrating that local communities can be at the forefront of developing practical and sustainable long-term responses to the current crisis. We would like to share some stories with you about the impact of this Church Action on Poverty programme.

Over the past nine months, the Your Local Pantry network has grown exponentially, and is rapidly becoming a key component of a community-led recovery from the pandemic in towns and cities across the country.

The growth of Your Local Pantry represents a further flourishing of the community-led mutual-aid movement which has a long history in the UK, and which has very much come back to the fore in response to the coronavirus crisis. Local Pantries, as sustainable member-run food clubs, are a move away from the model of foodbanks, with their focus on emergency food handouts, towards a more sustainable long-term response to food poverty. More than this, Local Pantries promote health and wellbeing, saving money and building community and social connection, offering their members dignity, choice and hope in a time of crisis.

Our new Pantries social impact report, published this month, demonstrates how Local member-run Pantries have been instrumental in increasing resilience, building community, saving money, promoting health and well-being for thousands of members across UK. The network has more than trebled in size from 14 Pantries in March 2020, and is now looking forward to welcoming the 50th Pantry to the network in the next few weeks. Click below to read the repiort and find out more.

Read the report

Best wishes

Liam Purcell
Church Action on Poverty