Our mission at RCV is to create robust, self-sufficient communities that have kindness at the heart. One of the ways we're here to help the community to combat the rising cost of living is through our pantry at We Connect. Our members can get baskets of food at our pantry for just £4. The aim is to give everyone who needs it the opportunity to have a hand-up rather than just a handout.
Our Pantry has been helping up to 250 local people a month and has been at our Coffee Shop since February. Thanks to our membership with Fairshare we have a wide selection of food available including tinned items, fresh and frozen items, fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as a selection of cleaning items and toiletries.
Why £4?
In order to create a robust community, we ourselves have to ensure that we are sustainable. We pay £260 a month for our membership to Fairshare. This guarantees us 200kg of food a week that we redirect from landfill and put into our Pantry. In asking for a nominal fee for a basket we are securing our Fairshare membership.
We have opened the pantry in consultation with local food banks and by allowing our members to choose the foods they want to purchase and charging £4 for a basket we are empowering people to take control of their food bills.
What Does a Basket Buy?
This is the real question - what does £4 get you at the pantry? They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so ta-dah:
Yes, all this was just £4 at the pantry. This photo was taken 12th September and shows the food available at the pantry that week.
At the pantry you can get one level basket of goods, however, as our fresh items are perishable they are additional items to compliment your basket. So our helpful pantry staff put together this basket and you want to know how many meals this could make? Let us show you:
This meal planner would need some additional items like oils, herb and spices and maybe some eggs and some additional veggies but we predict would feed two people, three meals a day, for the whole week! Now that really is impressive!
We're incredibly proud of the Pantry and what we are able to offer people in the community. We want to give people the means to help themselves during these incredibly difficult times and our Pantry is a great solution for so many of our members.
Recipe Cards
At our Pantry we often get feedback that our members can't see all the options for meals and end up just taking beans and pasta sauces. This is something we can help with.
Coming to We Connect soon we will be introducing recipe cards. We are currently developing some digital downloads that will be available on our website for you to get ideas. We're asking for your help. We want your creative, low-cost meal ideas so we can create the Online Risca Community Kitchen Cook Book.
Email your recipe ideas to jenna@rcvuk.org or bring them into We Connect. Help us not only empower people in the community to get weekly shopping they can afford but also build confidence in the kitchen.
As ever thank you to everyone in the community who has supported the Pantry and the RCV Mission.
Need Further Assistance?
We also run the RCV UK Emergency Food Bank. Please don't hesitate to get in touch if you need food parcels - we are here to help you.