In an unprecedented display of competence, compassion and quiet revolution, a network of “Your Local Pantry” services across Kirkholt, Smallbridge and Freehold has been helping locals survive the terrifying ordeal of modern Britain, namely, grocery shopping.
Every Thursday, the community pantries fling open their doors and allow residents to pay £4 for a food parcel worth £20, essentially robbing Tesco blind with the full blessing of society. It’s socialism in a plastic carrier bag, and it’s catching on.
RBH, the housing association behind the scheme, insists the pantries are “about more than food”, which is reassuring, given Britain is now about more than functioning as a country.
Over the past year, the project claims to have saved residents £128,000 on shopping bills, £21,266 on energy costs, and at least £12,000 in nutritional regret by serving actual hot meals cooked by catering students who’ve yet to be crushed by life.
“This is about community,” said Amanda Newton, RBH’s Chief Executive and part-time social architect. “One woman hadn’t left her house in months. Now she’s coming for a chat and a biscuit. We call it mental health support. The NHS calls it ‘how dare you.’”
With 200 members and over 2,300 hours of volunteer time logged this year, the scheme is singlehandedly holding back the tide of despair, loneliness, and Super Noodle dependency engulfing the north.
Local businesses have also been roped in, presumably under threat of receiving another business rates bill, to donate food, toiletries, and the occasional anonymous tin of artichoke hearts no one really knows what to do with.
Zahida Bashir, Pantry Services Manager and unofficial therapist to the economically traumatised, added: “If you’re struggling, come and see us. The government might have forgotten you exist, but we haven’t. And we’ve got teabags.”
Meanwhile, councillors are considering how to monetise the scheme before it becomes dangerously successful, and have proposed charging £1 to sniff a tin of beans “just to remind people of what aspiration smells like.”
For more information, or to join this underground resistance against market economics, visit: www.rbh.org.uk/how-we-can-help-you/your-local-pantry/
