HERE'S HOW OUR FOOD BANK IS FINDING ITS WAY IN THE EMERGING NEW NORMAL.

If somebody had asked me a couple of months ago how many food parcels First Base would hand out on a sunny day in May, I guess I would have shrugged. On a busy day, maybe thirty? Possibly forty? And a quiet day? Ten? Something like that.

A couple of months ago, a long stretch of dry sunny weather would have meant the food bank being quieter than normal. More sun means more warmth which means less cash required to feed the meter. And less cash in the meter means more cash for the supermarket. Not rocket science, right?

But that was a couple of months ago. And a couple of months ago meant the old normal. A couple of months ago was a completely different world.

In the emerging new normal of yesterday, the sun shone and 253 food parcels headed out of the door of First Base. And of course if anyone had told me this was going to happen a couple of months ago I would have chuckled at such craziness.

But this kind of craziness has now become our new normal.

Would I have thought First Base capable of sending 253 food parcels out of the door on a sunny day in May? No chance. No chance at all.

And yet we did send out 253 food parcels and amazingly enough, we pretty much did it without breaking sweat. Which is actually quite extraordinary.

So how on earth has everything changed so completely that 253 parcels in one day has become our own new normal?

It is probably worth breaking things down a bit.

I will start with the biggest number. 150 parcels headed 30 miles north up the A76 to the Miners Memorial Hall in Kirkconnel. So here's the first thing. I didn't drive 150 actual parcels up the road to Kirkconnel. Instead my white fan was filled with the ingredients needed to provide a base for 150 food parcels. Once the food was unloaded, it was bagged up and supplemented by whatever additional items were available.

Do I know where all the parcels were delivered? Not really. I know they were handed out to people in the three villages of Sanquhar, Kelloholm and Kirkconnel. People who are stuggling. Finding the ends hard to meet. Fuloughed people. Newly unemployed people. Shielded people. Locked down elderly people. All kinds of people struggling to get by in three small villages where coal mining once provided well paid jobs for all that wanted them.

How?

Well a bunch of local folk have come to together and created a system whereby those who need help get some help. They go street to street. Every street. Sometimes it means picking up a prescription. Sometimes it means a chat from the gate or over the phone. And of course sometimes it means delivering a bag of food. 150 food parcels per week to three villages in the Lowther Hills with a combined population of 6000.

How many volunteers? I can't give you an exact number. Forty, fifty, something like that. They have taken a grip of their local area and sorted it. Brilliant really. Inspiring. Simple and yet utterly effective. Nobody is getting left behind in the old coal mining villages of Upper Nithsdale.

Our role is actually pretty simple. Our role is to send a full van up the valley with enough food to provide a solid base for the volunteers to build on. A pie, a portion of broth, eggs, milk, bicuits, bread rolls, spuds, mash, beans, cereal. Basics, Simple fare, almost all of which is sourced locally. Our job is down to logistics. Secure funds. Secure food. Schedule deliveries. And then local people provide local solutions.

A few miles down the valley is the village of Thornhill where nobody has ever hacked a chunk of coal from the belly of the earth. Thornhill is a leafy kind of place of expensive houses and gently rolling hills. For years our food parcels have been available from the local library. And for years nobody much has needed them. We only deliver four at a time. And more than once the people in the library have called me up to tell me some of the food in the bags is running out of sell by date.

But that was the old normal. The new normal means the small library is closed for the duration. One of our volunteers, John, decided to take the local bull by the horns and he has created a new normal for Thornhill. John is an old Union man. You won't be surprised to hear he doesn't have a poster of Boris Johnson on his living room wall. But he is an old hand when it comes to the whole community organising thing. He fixed for a small community hall to be used as a local hub. He went onto Facebook to ask if anyone had a spare freezer. They did. And we duly filled him up with the core ingredients listed above. 

Next up he door stepped the local Spar and Co-op managers. Would they donate? Would they host a collection box? They would. They did.

Next up he once again talked to the village via Facebook to say he would open the doors of the community centre twice a week for anyone who either wanted to pick up food or to collect food. The first day saw six people with carrier bags filled with offerings. Others stumped up cash. The local Rotary Club pitched in.

Now when I make deliveries, the stuff we provide is in the minority. Tables are laden with packets and tins and homemade jam. John goes shopping for bread and other essentials.

And slowly but surely, a demand started to quietly emerge. Referrals from social workers and health visitors. Calls to First Base. Messages on our Facebook page. Five a week. Ten a week. A couple of large stuggling families.

But John still wasn't happy. In his bones, he could sense the fear of local stigma. Behind the well kept gardens and sturdy front doors were people running out of room on their credit cards. People who never in a million years would have ever imagined ever needing help with filling their food cupboards. Proud people. People suddenly feeling the sharp end of a brutal new normal.

So John worked Facebook and guaranteed complete anonymity to anyone needing help. And he did it again and again, much like he once harried and cajoled workers to sign on the dotted line for the Union.

And over a period of five days last week, he provided emergency food for 35 people. Young and old. Adult and child. In the leafy village of Thornhill. In the gentle sunshine of a Scottish spring.

There are a whole bunch of lessons we need to learn from what John has achieved. Fear of stigma is a cancerous thing. Too many people are terrified to ask for the help they need. They are terrified of the gleeful gossip at the counter of the local Spar shop. You'll never guess who is getting food parcels....... Who'd have thought it !!

John has worried away at the problem like a dog with a bone and seems he has managed to start to break though. Respect.

Anyway. 

Back to our 253 food parcels. 54 went to 12 families of Syrian refugees who have been settled in and around Dumfries. We were asked to help out by the social worker tasked with making sure they are OK. Every Thursday afternoon the deliveries are carried out by Lassaad. Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with the story of Lassaad and Hela and their four kids. We helped them out as they lived through years and years of the Hostile Environment. We were delighted to have played a part in the family being granted an indefinite leave to remain in Scotland. And now Lassaad is happily giving back. His help means we can deliver the food the refugees need in Arabic. Kevin, Our very own 'Mr Delivroo' could have probably have managed a Dumfries version of Asalaamuakeikum, but that would have been pretty much that! Lassaad is a serious upgrade.

Sorry, Kev.

Ingredients for another thirty parcels headed half a mile across town to the Summerhill Community Centre. This is very much a new normal 'barter trade' kind of deal. The volunteers of Summerhill knock out 500 portions of Scotch Broth a week for us which we freeze and distribute. In turn, we provide base ingredients for 30 food parcels which they add to and deliver out. Do we know where the parcels go? Nope. Are we bothered? Nope. We have known the people at Summerhill Community Centre for years and have absolunte confidence in their local knowledge and judgement. If Carlsberg did community centres.......

And the balance of the 253 parcels? Well these we either collected or delivered by Kev. Referrals from social workers and probation workers and welfare officers. All kinds of workers. Some were ring ins. Some were text ins. Some were Facebook ins. Some were names we have known for years. Some were first timers. In fact most were first timers.

The new normal.

253 people to feed on a sunny day in May. All done and dusted by a whole bunch of volunteers and a sixty year old blogger in a white van care of Arnold Clark. And by the way I best point out the generosity of the aforesaid Arnold Clark who extended our hire for a mere £100 for an extra month.

Without the amazing help of a huge number of people, there is no way we could have provided 253 people with the food they needed in the new normal. Not in a million years. The help we have received since the lockdown slammed home on 23 March has been astounding. 

Overwhelming. Humbling. Inspiring. Stunning.

Help from companies like the Little Bakery and Irvings and Arnold Clark and Brown Brothers and Rab Corder Bathrooms and Morrisons.

Help from everyone who has donated cash to our online fundraising page. Or by bank transfer. Or by cheque. Or in person. Too many to name. 

Help from everyone who has donated food. 

Help from the Scottish Government and Local Council who were decisive and fleet of foot. They managed to give up the beaurocratic habits of a lifetime to get cash to the front line in record time.

Help from what has become a small army of volunteers.

Help, help and more help. Enough help. Amazing help. Help to ensure 253 food parcels was no kind of impossibility. Help to ensure 253 was an achieved reality.

Which means a massive thank you is required to one and all. Required and delivered.

Thank you!

Each passing day sees more and more stuff on the news about spiralling levels of deprivation. America is starting to look increasingly desperate. Much of England is starting to look much the same. I am delighted to be able to report that Dumfries and Galloway seems to have things pretty much covered. And we are delighted to be playing our part. What is happening in real time shows the truly amazing things that can be achieved when National Government, Local Government and local communities find a way to come together. We are going to have to all do a whole lot more of this in the dire months and years which are lying in wait. The new normal will be brutal for millions.

Brutal but not impossible. If we all build on what we have started, then all kinds of solutions will be possible. Community is clearly alive and kicking. Long may it continue.

If you are minded to help us out with a small donation, then you can find our online funding page via the link below.

THE FIRST BASE ONLINE FUNDRAISING PAGE