Chesterfield community kitchen handed out more than 10,000 parcels during Covid lockdown

Gussie’s Kitchen has reopened its community cafe at St Augustine’s Church, after being forced to close during the coronavirus pandemic – and it was a double celebration as it also took delivery of an electric cargo bike to support its work.

Not that its volunteers stopped their work while the cafe was closed.

Coun Lisa Blakemore, one of the founders of the kitchen back in 2016, says: “Gussie’s started off as a communiity cafe – we used surplus food to make three-course meals and our community members used to come down and eat and socialise and it was fantastic.

“However, when Covid hit, we changed our whole service to food parcel provision.

“People would contact us, whether they had Covid. were shielding or whatever reason, and we would provide them with a food parcel – we handed out more than 10,000 parcels during covid lockdown.”

“At the most we did 250 food parcels on one day, and another 60 on another day that week.

“We have a subscription to Fairshare, so it’s surplus food that would normally go in the bin, weve had access from Tesco, their food waste, and we’ve had donations.”

Coun Jenny Flood, Gussie’s volunteer co-ordinator and administrator, says: “We had the social, eating cafe and when Covid started, we morphed very quickly into doing food bags, because people couldn’t come out.

“So we bought more food and delivered at a peak to 250 households.

“We also did batch cooking for the elderly, the vulnerable and homeless, providing ration packs for homeless.”

Batch Cooking

The project was part of the county-wide Batch Cook scheme, backed by the Feeding Derbyshire alliance and Rural Action Derbyshire, which recognised that “over the past 15 months, Covid-19 has left many vulnerable Derbyshire residents struggling to cook healthy, hot meals”.

Samantha Mumby Harrison, Rural Action Derbyshire project co-ordinator, says: “Projects would cook surplus food, making fresh, home-made meals and delivering them to communities.

“Throughout the whole project, Gussie’s has been so eager to get involved. This project alone did thousands of meals just to their local community.”

Overall, the Batch-Cook project supplied more than 3.7 tonnes of food to 11 groups, resulting in more than 163,500 meals distributed to vulnerable people across the county – at an average cost of 91p per meal.

Beverley Parked, Rural Action Derbyshire chief executive officer, says, “I have been so impressed by the enthusiasm and hard work of the volunteers that have made all this possible. It’s been a great achievement.”

Now, as restrictions have relaxed and demand for the parcels eased, Gussie’s has reacted again, reopening its community cafe – to provide people with hot, nutritious and affordable meals – and launching a pantry shop offering surplus food to the community.

Coun Blakemore, Chesterfield Council Labour member for Rother alongside Coun Flood, says: “We’ve moved again to increase independence, as we go back to some sort of normality,

“We’ve opened a pantry shop, where people pay £5 and get 21 items to make up a shop.

“It’s a vital service to the community, but it’s nice to have people back.

“People are so grateful that we’ve been able to help them

“We’ve not just given them food, we’ve talked to them, we’ve helped them if they’ve had problems with debt. We’ve been that person they can talk to.

“Now it’s lovely that we’ve progressed for them to be able to come in person again.”

“It’s just bringing everyone together, it’s a lovely community.”

Volunteer Shaun Jones, Gussie’s joint-chairman and head chef, says the project does wonders for people feeling isolated.

“Five years ago, we started providing meals to help the community out and trying to get families together,” he explains.

“Some of them felt isolated, such as the elderly, so we were bringing them all together, helping them meet other people.

“I was in the same position, isolated, but it’s helped me, brought me out more to meet others.”

The 42-year-old believes he has cooked about 20,000 meals during his time volunteering.

“We can can fit about 120 people in the cafe,” he says.

“It is putting a smile on people’s faces. Some never went out before we started providing a three-course meal. Now they come out for food and to meet friends.”

Going green

The scheme is also proud of its environmental credentials, using surplus food which would otherwise go to waste and landfill, and reusing packaging where possible – something they were unable to do last year due to the pandemic.

Coun Flood says: “We’ve also upcycled things, to help homeless people into flats with furniture.

“Last year, the project cost us £60,000 – including £8,000 just on carrier bags, which could not be reused during the pandemic. That was really horrible to think we were doing something which wasn’t good for the environment, a waste of money.”

However, it is renewing its environment commitment by taking delivery of an e-cargo bike on a six-month loan from Cycle Derby, which works to promote cycling, for use in collecting donations and making deliveries in the nearby area.

Mark Smith, project manager at Cycle Derby, says: “We lend them out, free of charge, to local businesses on a try-before-you-buy basis.

“If a company wants to get into active travel, be more green, save some money, they can see what it’s like to hride one of these, see how beneficial it is before they commit to buying one.

That’s why Gussies have got one today with the idea of going back to the council to look for a grant to purchase their own one.”

Mrs Mumby-Harrison says: “We’ve been quite fortunate that CD offered Feeding Derbyshire the bike on loan.

“We decided Gussie’s was one of the best projects for it to go to, as they’re so engaged with the community.”

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