Fratton Together Pantry helping to tackle food poverty from the heart of the community

The News, Portsmouth

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00:00I'm Father Bob White, the Chair of Fratton Together, and we're in the Fratton Together

00:03Pantry, which is on the edge of the Bridge Centre in Fratton Road.

00:06Yes, obviously, you're a recent tenant, how long have you been open here now?

00:10We've been open for about six months, and we're about to move towards opening twice

00:15a week as well.

00:16Okay, so how many are you open at the moment?

00:19Currently it's on a Tuesday, 1.30pm to 2.30pm, but then on Wednesday afternoons there's a

00:24drop-in centre in the front room here, which is information, advice, different aspects

00:29of community life, health, well-being.

00:30Okay, perfect, perfect, so now you're going to be open twice a week, so what services

00:35do you run from here?

00:36The Pantry is a way of people coming in to pay £5 a week, and they can take as many

00:41of the items as they want, which normally has a value of about £20 to £30, so it helps

00:45people move on from relying on food banks to becoming more self-sufficient, and yet

00:50addressing the issues of food poverty.

00:52Yeah, okay, so say £5 a week, is that kind of like a subscription fee, or do you have

00:57to come and pay as you go?

00:58No, you're signed up as a member, and once you're a member, you come in and you pay £5

01:01every time you come in, you can take 10 items from within here, some of which are of higher

01:07value than others, so there's a coded system for making sure you don't take all the good

01:11stuff and leave all the lesser value stuff behind, but you'd say the normal shopping

01:16basket is somewhere between £20 and £30.

01:18Right, okay, and what's the response been like so far?

01:21It's been very good, we've got about 200 members, so it's signed up, and the weekly shop is

01:26about 20 to 30 people.

01:28Okay, and obviously, lots of work going on at the Bridge Centre at the moment, which

01:33I see quite a bit of the tenants of, so how important is it to have a thriving shopping

01:39centre or community hub?

01:40I think over the last 10 years with Frackenbig Local, which was the predecessor of Fracken

01:44Together, one of the big issues was always the state of Fracken Road, and particularly

01:48of the Bridge Centre itself, with lots of empty units, low quality maintenance, just

01:54a very run-down, sad feel, and we wanted to encourage people to be proud of their community

01:58and to celebrate what's in it, so the work with Future High Streets and the City Council

02:02in investing here and supporting us to be here with also people like the Parents Network

02:07has just brought the place back to life, looks well cared for, and is hopefully increasing

02:12the sense of community pride.

02:13We were running Frackenbig Local prior to this, which was a Lottery-funded project for

02:1710 years, so we do a lot of community events and activities which we'll continue to be

02:21doing, so things like the Lantern Parade, the Light Festival, taking part in the May

02:25Fair, all sorts of other events that go throughout the year, but the Pantry is the first time

02:30we've opened a unit such as this.

02:32Right, and it's had a good response in terms of being a central hub or a bit of a drag?

02:37I think so, and I think the fact that we're able to use it as our base now on Fracken

02:40Road and we're much more visible, before we were just moving through various buildings

02:44and people would come to different events in different places, but now we've got our

02:48own hub here, so we can open it up for more interaction on a weekly basis.

02:52Perfect, so if someone's not heard of you before and they want to get involved or sign

02:57up, how do they do that?

02:58Probably the best bet is to pop into the Pantry on a Tuesday at the moment, 1.30am-3pm, or

03:05to contact us, probably easier at the moment to contact via me, and I pass it on at vicar

03:10at portseyparish.co.uk.

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