BS3 Community Larder - update from Sarah Yates

We began running the foodbank from Monday 30 March.
We had quite a lot of people registered as volunteers, who had offered their
services from the local community and some others from St Paul’s Church.
Through my work at St Francis, Ashton Gate and St Michael’s, Windmill Hill I was
able to publicise the Larder there and a few more volunteers emerged.
Towards the end of March, I was in touch with all the volunteers to sign them
up, make sure that they did the safeguarding training and to find out what their
availability was.
For the first two weeks, we ran the Larder for three mornings per week but
quite quickly realised that it would be better to run each weekday morning.
Slowly the numbers of volunteers have crept up and we now have getting on for
60 people signed up to be able to help. I use about 40 people every week for
the foodbank to operate smoothly. It is great that new volunteers are still
coming forward as people’s availability is changing constantly and creating the
rotas each week is a lengthy and challenging process!
The Process
Each Thursday, I send out rotas for the following week. However, even though
the team is in place, things change rapidly and every morning tends to be a
scramble sourcing volunteers to help with additional collections of food or to
take on additional deliveries to clients!
We have five volunteers in the church each morning. The Shift Leader and one
other volunteer arrive at 7:50am. Two other volunteers arrive at 9:40am.
A fifth volunteer arrives at 10:30am and stays with the team leader until the
end of the shift which is usually around 2pm. The other volunteers leave about
noon once most of the parcels have been made up.
Sometimes last minute referrals come in and it can be very busy getting
everything ready for the volunteers who arrive at 12:50pm to deliver to clients.