New Surrey community grocery shop sees huge demand
Woking Community Grocery say they're expecting to reach 1000 members within six weeks of opening
A community food shop that was recently set up to help support people during the cost of living, has told us they're expecting to reach 1000 members within 6 weeks of opening.
Woking Community Grocery told us they initially were expecting it to take a whole year to reach that point
The shop serves as a mid point between a supermarket and a foodbank where people can sign up for £5 a year and can enjoy groceries at a heavily discounted price.
It's being run in partnership with the Welcome Church, also based locally
Dub Everett, who oversees the shop, spoke to us about why these types of resources are needed as well as foodbanks
"I think there's a range of people coming through the door, some of which have been to the food banks and received their three or four vouchers to give them food over a few weeks and they've got to the end of that run and can't get any more for a while and they're being signposted to us.
But there are so many other people who could do with a food bank voucher. But again, for reasons of pride, reasons of dignity are saying, I'm not going to go
It can sometimes feel quite a hard ask for someone to go in a way that sort of may feel cap in hand to an agency and organisation and say, can you give me one of those red vouchers for the food bank?"
Dub told us about how much of a privilege it is to be able to impact so many people's lives through the shop
"Firstly, it's a desperate situation that this is needed in Woking, but it is a real privilege. But for us, we want to be a solution. We want to be a helping hand to people.
At Welcome Works, about offering a hand up rather than a handout. We want to help restore dignity and we want to provide a helping hand so that people can begin to sort of retake control of their lives and their finances and their budgets and that sort of thing.
So it's been a real privilege to open the door"
Dub emphasised the point that these shops could help those who might not consider a foodbank
"The feedback seems to tell us that at least as many people could do with food support, but are not going to the food bank as those who are. And therefore, the food bank who gave over 4000 parcels of food to clients in Woking last year, there may be another 4000 food parcels that they could have done with giving.
So this, the beauty of the Woking Community Grocery is it's an environment where anyone and everyone will feel delighted to come through the door, feel proud to shop and will be just amazed at the amount of money they can save as well."