KATRIONA AND MYRA - HOW THEY SAT OUT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE AND SUCCEEDED

For anyone involved in running one of Britain's thousands of food banks the the next few months are seriously daunting. This is a time of year when some kind of budget needs to be worked out. Most of the leaves are off the trees and the dark nights are closing in. The day when things start to get serious is not so very far away. This particular day generally lands in either October or November.

It is the day when winter arrives.

And all over Britain households who have had the gas knocked off for months switch on the heating only to find their meters in arrears. They have mistakenly believed that if all the heaters are left off there will be nothing going on the meter. Not so daft a thought really. What always gets missed is the dreaded daily charge which stealthily adds up through the warm days of summer as unnoticed as a gathering company of Viet Cong fighters.

It means a tenner on the meter only delivers a couple of quid's worth of heat. It means the budget is all blown up. The meter demands more money like a yelling toddler in the supermarket confectionary aisle. So the meter gets fed with the grocery money and all of a sudden the food bank is the only show in town.

It's the day when the reception area is full of people in coats. It's the day when the stacks of food in the basement don't look so impressive any more. It's the day when things change.

This coming winter is as threatening as any we have faced over our fifteen years in the emergency food game. Want a list? OK. I can do that. Try this lot on for size.

1. The price of most of the basic foods at the cheap end of the supermarket shelves is up north of 50%

2. Wages haven't gone up in ten years.

3. Benefits are frozen

4. Power charges are up 20%

5. A whole bunch of families are about to be handed down a £2000 a year pay cut care of Universal Credit.

The value of the pound is probably about to cave by another 10% as the MP's in Westminster scrap and bitch like rats in a sack. How much will this put on food prices? Another 5% probably.

There really is no need for a degree in economics to see where this is all going. A family who has been scratching by for the last few years is about to have to find another £20 a week for groceries, £20 for power whilst at the same time seeing their universal credit chopped by £40. All the credit cards are already maxed out and the bank of mum and dad has done a Lehmans. They've already had the foodbank conversation many times, but the sheer shame of it has kept them from our doors. But now? Will they be able to weather a £80 a week hit to already over stretched finances? I guess we're about to find out.

This is the point when anyone involved in running a Scottish foodbank in the autumn of 2018 is seriously tempted to reach for the nearest bottle. But that's never such a good idea, right?

Instead our only show in town is to look to the community and take every bit of help we can get. Which brings me to the point of this particular blog. Massive problems are seldom solved by massive solutions. Maybe one day some reclusive billionnaire will read one of these blogs and impulsively bung a million quid onto our JustGiving site. I guess it will be the same day Donald and Melania adopt a Mexican baby.

There isn't about to be any huge fix. Instead we will need a whole bunch of small fixes and with a following wind, there will be enough small fixes for us to make it through to next spring in one piece.

And it is amazing how much of a difference people can make when they make their minds up to get something done.

Which brings me to my two role models for this grey October day.

Myra and Katriona.

Myra and Katriona both set their stalls out to do something. And they have shown just what can be done.

Katriona first.

Katriona manages the local branch of Nationwide. A few months ago she talked to her team and they decided to do something to help the local food bank. As in us. They cracked on with some fund raising and then twisted the arms of their head office to top up the money they raised.

£2500. 250 hungry people who will get four days worth of emergency food over the coming months.

But it didn't stop there. When the voting event for who would get a share of the local anti-poverty money was held, they used their lunch hour to come along and vote for us. Did their votes get us over the line? Maybe. The voting was certainly pretty tight. Maybe their votes were the ones which nudged us into the top five and a cheque for £16,000. Maybe.

Then one day I got an e mail from Katriona flagging up a Nationwide funding opportunity. If we wanted to apply for cash for a particular project, then the local branch would back us all the way.

It has to be said our application was about as unglamourous as an application can get. I'll take you through it. Four days of food is actually quite a lot of food. It's pretty heavy. It requires not only a big bag, but also a strong bag. A few years ago we found a company online who provided the right kind of strong white bags for 10p each. And for a while things worked out OK. The bags easily held all the food and the handles were strong enough to bear the load.

Then the Brexit vote happened and the pound crashed by 15%. The bag company had a straight up and down decision to make. Should they put the price up by 15% or reduce the quality by 15% and keep the price the same? They chose option B and for the last couple of years the handles of our bags just keep on ripping. Which is a bloody nuisance.

Most of the people who come to us for emergency food cannot afford the bus. They walk. Sometimes they walk for miles. And walking for miles with a dodgy post-Brexit bag is a complete pain.

We have thought about this for ages. The perfect solution is obvious enough. Splash out 38p on sturdy 'bags for life; and try like mad to persuade clients to bring them back. It looks good on paper but in practice it means spending an extra 28p on thousands of bags per year. £1850. 185 emergency food parcels. Too much money when you're running on fresh air.

Katriona offered us a chance to sort this pesky issue out. We applied and she backed the application and £1850 duly landed in our account.

Which takes us to Myra.

Myra is the Community Champion at Morrisons and like Katriona, she's a complete star.

One of the biggest problems we have had to face over recent years is buying enough of the food we need. We order online and food arrives at the back door. We don't get any kind of discount. We are punters just like everyone else. It would be really nice if things worked like you would expect they would work. When I place an order, I might ask for 99 packs of savoury rice, 99 packs of cup soup and 99 boxes of Corn Flakes. I pay up the full price and wait for the delivery to arrive.

Prettys simple, right?

If only.

When the van pitches up, it will usually bring about 15% of what we have actually ordered. In theory any shortfall is supposed to be made up by equivalent products. Aye right. In theory. The day Tesco replace 85 packs of 25p Value Savoury Rice with 85 packs of 80p Batchelors Savoury Rice is the day Donald and Melania....... yeah? As in never.

Which is where Myra stepped up to the plate. Supermarkets don't like selling the value range. They hate it. And when a food bank tries to buy a van load of the value goods, they really, really hate it. And they do everything they can to avoid it. Myra had aleady been a huge help to us. The collection trolley in Morrisons generates £4000 of donations a year. She asked us if there was anything else she could help us with. And we highlighted the problems we were having buying in the food we needed. Could we maybe place big orders from Morrisons?

This isn't something they do. We had to cobble up a way for making it happen. We now go in and buy £1500 worth of gift vouchers and Myra orders in the food. I get the feeling she had to nag and nag to make it happen, but she got there in the end. I get the feeling she is having to go rather further than the extra mile to cajole head office into large quanties of the value range. But one way or another, the deliveries arrive and we are able to fill the van with all the stuff we have found almost impossible to get elsewhere. I guess I need to give Morrisons some credit and I will. But would Morrisons be helping us out without Myra? I doubt it.

Which brings me to the point where Katriona and Myra come together. Once we had the £1850 Nationwide money in the account, I asked Myra if she would try to twist a few arms to get us a discount on a bulk order of bags for life. It took her weeks of calls and emails but she got there in the end.

10% off. A price of 34p per bag. 5000 decent, sturdy bags with handles which are comfortable to hold and impossibe to break. All the difference in the world to someone who has a three mile walk home carrying four day's worth of emergency food.

Katriona and Myra set out to make a difference. And they have made a difference. It is the only way we will get through the next few months. There is no point in waiting for national governments to come riding to the rescue. Instead every answer will come from within the community. From the bottom up. From lots and lots of people like Katriona and Myra deciding to do something.

And doing it. 

If by any chance Katriona and Myra's efforts have inspired you to give us a small leg up, you can find our fundraising page by following the link below.

THE FIRST BASE FUNDRAISING PAGE