The team that helped feed a town in crisis

"There's a train coming down the track with the end of furlough. We are taking on more people each week than we are losing."

Patrick Andre, Shelly Pritchard, Vicki Connor, Jo Dandridge and Elspeth Woods are the team who have helped feed a town during a crisis - and after.

Although the Coronavirus lockdown is over, there will still be plenty of people needing support from the Godalming Community Store.

The store was Vicki's brainchild, picked up and given traction by a team of willing volunteers who wanted to help those affected by the economic fallout of the lockdown, and a supportive town council.

It opened its doors on April 29th, and on July 28th marked its 100th day of operating: in that period it provided 12,180 days' worth of food and hygiene products to people in need in the community.

When the virus started making headlines in January, Patrick was already on the ball. With the start of lockdown in March, he galvanised the town into helping those affected by the economic fallout.

As people were laid off or put on furlough Patrick and his team recognised the need to support them.

Staring an imminent disaster in the face, he set up the Godalming and Villages Community Coronavirus Facebook page and asked for food donations and help in getting them where they needed to be.

"That was set up because I saw what was going on in Italy," he says. "It was clear it was going to hit us over here."

Patrick was keen to work closely with the St Mark's Foodbank, which has been doing such sterling work for 10 years up on Ockford Ridge. "My first job was to go up and see Karen, who runs the St Mark's Foodbank," he said. "I wanted to do a joint venture. My role is to liaise between the two to make sure we are balanced between their clients and ours." But for DJ Patrick, it was a steep learning curve.

"I'd never really understood foodbanks until I got involved," he says. "But the relationship between us now is fantastic."

What is also fantastic is the operation that has sprung from that initial Facebook page. Backed financially and practically by the town council, the Community Store now has around 20 volunteers, with home donation points and the use of the Wilfrid Noyce Centre free of charge. Local businesses have been magnificent too, he says, reeling off a list of companies who have stepped forward to help the town in its hour of need: Acorn, Amy Lou's, Cook, Craddocks, Si Capital, Headline Design & Print, Veg 7 Fruit at the Pepper Pot and Godalming Pharmacy. The Rotary Club has also been hugely supportive. "Everybody has stepped up," he says. "There has been a wonderful reaction. It has been a huge success story."

Among the first firms to step forward was Wharf Street's Acorn restaurant. Staff went into the Wilfrid Noyce Centre kitchens and used donated items to cook a range of fresh foods including risotto, pasta dishes and pizzas.

Next a call went out for freezers: a post on a Facebook page resulted in four donations, including one from Patrick's own business, Halcyon Disco.

The group put out a call for donations on Facebook. "The first week we went round in our cars and picked up everything from people's doorsteps," Patrick recalls.

"By the second week it was getting a little bit too much. We needed a room, a van and a phone number."

The group turned for help to Godalming Town Council leader Paul Follows. " I sent Vicki to speak to Paul as no one dares say no to her," Patrick laughs.

"Paul introduced Vicki to Andy Jeffrey, and within 30 minutes the mass donation day was conceived, which then became Trolley Tuesday."

The team set up trolley points for people to donate while out on their daily exercise during lockdown. The trollies, which had been kindly lent by Waitrose and Sainsbury's, were placed at points around the town and further afield, including in Busbridge, Compton and Bramley.

"The response was huge," Patrick says. "Many of the trollies came back full."

Each week, 10 trolley-loads of food, toiletries and cleaning items are delivered to the Wilfrid Noyce Centre on Tuesday lunchtime and are checked, sorted, dated and placed into the 'stock room' in the main hall.

There have been a few amusing donations: pigeon pate, a sock and a pregnancy test all turned up in the trollies and have had to be weeded out.

The donations are shared with the St Marks Foodbank: Patrick says the two organisations have built up a strong mutually beneficial relationship.

"If they need particular items they let us know and we put that aside for them," he explains.

Cash donations, from individuals and the town council, amount to between £200 and £300 a week, and are used to buy fresh and dairy products such as eggs, cheese, yogurt and buttery spreads.

The store offers all the items you would pick up on a weekly shop: fruit and veg, pasta, tins of beans, tomatoes, fish and meat; soups, jams, honey, dairy products, toiletries, cleaning products, baby food and nappies.

Recipe leaflets and help with planning meals are also on offer, both of which have been very well received by shoppers, according to Karen Warner, who helps support the project on behalf of Godalming Town Council.

The roll call of people and organisations who have helped make this project such a success is a long one: from the Godalming Canoe Club, who collectively donate eggs and Hookley Farm in Elstead who top up their donations, to Cook, which gives 50 meals a week. The Pepperpot greengrocer and Amy Lou's donate fresh fruit and veg, and allotment holders at Meadrow and George Road take in produce. Waitrose donates items, and printers Craddocks met the cost of producing 20,000 leaflets which were pushed through letterboxes across Godalming and surrounding villages by a team of volunteers. The organisers of Staycation Live, Tom and Dave Allen, "came in with a huge donation", says Patrick. And he praises Godalming Mayor Penny Rivers, who he said has been 'fantastic'.

Schools in the town have been hugely supportive of the scheme, says Patrick, hosting collection boxes once some children returned to classes, and there are plans to put boxes in gyms and at the library.

"We have also put in Home Hubs, where you get a box which you put outside your house and people can walk past and put something in the box," says Patrick.

Neighbours have got organised with WhatsApp groups to co-ordinate their efforts. The town council updates the shopping list every Tuesday afternoon on its website and then Patrick posts it on Sunday evening on the Godalming & Villages Community Coronavirus page on Facebook, which ensures the store keeps a balanced stock. Patrick, Vicky and their supporters wanted the Community Store run in a different way from the average foodbank.

The first idea was from Jo Dandridge, one of the admins on the Facebook page. She suggested calling the shop The Godalming and Villages Community Store.

"The council and I agreed that we wanted to avoid the usual referral process, because we want to help as many people as we can as quickly as we can. We wanted to give people the chance to phone up and explain their situation and then they could have a 15-minute shop within the store," added Patrick.

People who would like to use the Community Store should contact Godalming Town Council on 01483 523575 or via email at [email protected] They just need to explain their situation, and are then given a 15-minute slot to shop in the store.

Appointments are made individually so shoppers can shop alone or with a family member if they need support.

Patrick says he has heard some difficult stories from people visiting the store. "We had one lady who came in with her three children: she hadn't eaten for a week," he said. "That's quite heartbreaking to us. I really want to hug some people and say 'It's OK,' but I can't of course." And he illustrates how difficult it is at the moment for some families. "If two members of a family are working and one or both loses their job they will go down to 40% of their old income. Then they can meet the rent or mortgage but there is nothing left for basics like food." But there are success stories too, with people going back to work or moving to new jobs. "There aren't many jobs where you can say the best part is when people no longer need us and we can say to them, 'I hope we never see you again'. But people have come to us, then they go back to work or their Universal Credit kicks in and they move on." The Community Store itself will have to move on at some point too, as the town council needs it back. "We are looking for a new venue, because they need the Wilfrid Noyce Centre as it's a source of income for the council," Patrick says. The store is certainly not shutting up shop: there will be a demand for its services well into next year, and the town council has agreed to fund it into 2021. Volunteers are braced for a new influx of customers once the furlough scheme comes to an end in October and more people lose their jobs. "Once people have realised we're here until 2021 they know they will be OK," says Patrick.

You can donate on Trolley Tuesday between 8am and 11.0am at the following locations :

Binscombe Church, St John's Church, Busbridge Church, Miford Village Hall, Godalming College, the Borough Hall, Bramley Village Hall, Compton Club and Long Gore. You can also donate food items while the store is open: Monday to Friday from 10.30am to 12.30pm.

To make a cash donation email [email protected]