This weekend, I paid a visit to the Purley Food Hub at the Purley United Reform Church which today celebrates its 10-year anniversary. In the 10 years that it has been around, it has served Purley and the surrounding areas in providing 290,000 meals to local residents in crisis.
Like many, I had donated before, but I didn’t know exactly how it worked. It was great to meet team leader Steve and the lovely volunteers who explained the process to me.
Entirely volunteer-run, the service provides free food parcels for individuals and families living in CR8 (Purley), CR2 (South Croydon), CR5 (Coulsdon) and CR0 4 (Waddon). People are referred by various agencies, including the Jobs Centre, Croydon Council, local Churches, schools and GP practices. Three meals a day for three days is provided.
Everything is delivered directly to the door (on Wednesdays and Saturdays), and I had the opportunity during my visit to meet some of the drivers who volunteer their time to do this. I got to see volunteers deal with stock, sorting and logging data and saw the vast array of items available beyond food such as nappies, sanitary products and toiletries.
Each month, a donation priority list is published. For this month, please see below:
- Long Life Whole Milk for Children
- Tinned Meat Meals - eg, Mince in Gravy, Chicken in Sauce
- Jars of Peanut Butter, Fish & Meat Paste
- Hot Chocolate requiring only water
- Small 500g Bags of Sugar
- Savoury Biscuits
- Tinned Pulses
- Toddlers’ Microwavable Meals
- Unisex Shampoo
- Toothpaste
- Toilet Rolls
Donations can be dropped off at the Purley United Reform Church on Monday mornings between 9am and noon and if not possible then on Wednesday/Saturday mornings (9am-noon). There are also donation baskets at various places locally including:
- Sainsbury’s Local, Purley
- St Mark’s Church, Woodcote (yellow wheelie bin)
- Waitrose Sanderstead
- Co-op, Hamsey Green
- Sainsbury’s Warlingham
With cost-of-living top of people’s minds and people facing real hardship, this service is needed more than ever, and the generosity of the community, including local businesses, schools and Churches is clear.
So much time and effort goes into keeping the food hub going in an efficient way and I was impressed by the operation. I really enjoyed the chance to help out and look forward to volunteering in the future.
A big thank you to the Purley Food Hub and all those involved for everything they have done over the last decade and here’s to continued success in supporting the most vulnerable in our community.
Cllr Samir Dwesar
