‘ I’d feel anxious that I couldn’t pay for my shopping’
A trip to the supermarket used to fill Jenny Howe with dread.
“Approaching the checkout I’d feel sick worrying I wouldn’t have the money to pay for it all,” says Jenny, 66, from Dorking. “It’s so embarrassing to have to put something back because you can’t afford it.”
Usually Jenny stuck to her carefully written shopping list and was able to pay for her weekly shop. However, their diet very basic and lacking in nutrients. Jenny has Type 1 diabetes, while her husband is in his late seventies but they couldn’t afford foods most suited to their individual dietary needs.
“We’d always get the cheaper meat and we often couldn’t afford vegetables or fruit. I’d buy the same things every week – basics like milk and bread – because I knew the price.”
Then in 2017 Jenny heard that Mid Surrey Community Fridges was opening on her estate. The scheme redistributes food that would otherwise be discarded by supermarkets to people who need it. Often there is nothing wrong with the food – it might have a who need it more,” admits Jenny. “But when I finally went
I felt so welcome.”
And removing the stress of food shopping wasn’t the only benefit.
“I noticed my health improving,” she says. “I had more energy because I was eating better and getting the vitamins I
needed from fruit and vegetables.”
Mid Surrey Community Fridges was also a safety net when the pandemic came, as it started to deliver food to vulnerable people.
“It’s been a great help – I don’t know what I’d have done otherwise,” says Jenny, who looked forward to a weekly chat with whoever was dropping off the supplies almost as much as the food itself. “It made such a difference to get that little bit of socialisation,” she says.
But the scheme couldn’t deliver food to hundreds of people if it wasn’t for the army of volunteers who help run it.
Despite being a busy mum- of- three and a part- time property manager, Margo Firaza, 37, also runs her local Mid Surrey Community Fridges hub.
“There’s been a huge increase in demand for our services since Covid,” says Margo, who started volunteering three years ago when a neighbour told her about it. She now loves encouraging people to try it out.
“People often think the scheme is a food bank and there’s a stigma attached to that,” she says. “But our main aim is to reduce food
waste – helping out people
“Everybody needs to eat. I tell people they are actually giving us a hand by coming and getting this food. Volunteers spend so much time organising it all and it’s hard work. If people don’t
wasted as well as the food. We have such a great variety of food, with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables.”