Wins national award for improving lives
STORE OFFERS WIDE RANGE OF REDUCED GOODS AS WELL AS SELF-HELP COURSES
A LOCAL Grimsby community store has won a national award for its help in improving the lives of local residents whilst giving them opportunities to better themselves. Community Shop on Wootton Road in Grimsby has won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise, in the Promoting Opportunity category. The shop, located on the Nunsthorpe estate, offers a wide range of reduced goods as well as a number of self-help courses to inspire and care for struggling members of the community.
The shop was one of four in the Yorkshire and Humber region to have won the award with others operating in much larger areas such as Huddersfield and Leeds.
For Dan Wake, social impact co-ordinator, it’s been a brilliant way to recognise all the good the centre does for people in the local community.
He said: “We’ve won this because of our unique approach. We not only offer the shop, but we have the hub and kitchen as well. We aim to make people a better version of themselves and help things like their employability skills. “Were unique in what we offer compared to other services who were in the running for this award. We offer a three-pronged way to improve people’s opportunities.
“The store is a low-cost supermarket where, if people are struggling, they can access the shop through our membership scheme and are able to provide the essentials for their family. “The hub is a space for personal growth. We provide classes such as resilience training to help improve their life skills. I remember one woman saying how her daughter had just started school and she wanted to be a teacher.
“With our links, I was able to point her in the right direction and that lady was then able to train to get PGCE to allow her to teach. We want to try and push people to go out and do something.
“The kitchen is primarily a café for our members and the public, but it’s also a way to teach children and adults how to cook.”
Head chef Becky Cook said: “We offer a cheap meal for people and are currently working with a number of groups, such as nurseries, to teach young children the basics of cooking. At the same time, we also run adult classes for those who want to learn the basics and more.
“We’re just really looking forward to being allowed to welcome customers back in on May 17.”
On the subject of the easing of lockdown and coronavirus, Dan explained how the centre had experienced an “interesting year”.
He said: “We’ve seen the impact and value of what we do more than ever before this year. There’s been a pretty considerable rise in how many members we have and you can see it’s impacted all sorts of people.
“We changed the process for a lot of what we do here during lockdown. For example, we started running online courses instead of operating from the hub and we also did online cooking tutorials.
“When restrictions change, we’ll begin to creep back into normality. We can’t wait to get the community back together and to finally get the background noise again.”
Mel Johnston, social impact co-ordinator, was once a member of the Community Shop and says the past year has shown how difficult it has been for all walks of life.
She explained: “I’ve seen a lot of people who thought they had secure jobs and professionals who are now having to use this service. If people needed us, we didn’t turn them away.
“I started off as a member, now it’s time to give back as it could be your neighbour or a family member in the same position. Personally, I’ve gained a lot of confidence in the four years I’ve been here and I’ve got a passion for doing this job.”
Looking to the future, Dan said the key is making sure those who haven’t visited during the pandemic return. “We’ll be resuming what we were doing pre-coronavirus, but there’ll be a more phased approach so we can help those who may not feel as motivated to come back immediately.”