12th January 2023. In their own words: An account of a morning spent at The Greenhouse Project and its mobile food pantry at Tiber Square – Initiatives supported by The Mailing Room.

On a cold, blustery January day we were kindly invited to visit The Greenhouse Project and its mobile food pantry located at Tiber Square in Toxteth, Liverpool that runs every Thursday between 10am and 12pm. The mobile food pantry is one of six pantries run across the city by Fans Supporting Foodbanks (FSF) distributing food and other household goods to people who need it the most. Set up in a farmer’s market style with a small members contribution from those visiting the pantry, the aim is to reduce the stigma around food poverty and provide people with a level of comfort and familiarity when obtaining the items they need (to find out more about FSF and their efforts visit our article on them here). Those who need visit the pantry join as members and pay £3.50 per visit to access up to £20 of perishable and non/perishable food items and other goods. FSF provide the mobile van and organise the functioning of the pantry, and The Mailing Room and FairShare (an organisation that redistributes surplus food to charities) and membership fees fund the goods that are available.

As organisations such as FSF campaign for the eradication of food poverty, unfortunately food pantries are still currently a necessity in the UK. There are currently 4.2 million people living in food poverty across the UK and as such pantries like this are an essential service for people struggling to access food and basic products.

The Greenhouse Project mobile food pantry is located at the former site of Tiber Street School in Toxteth, a space that now houses The Greenhouse Project; a locally founded and run charity created in 1997 that gives disadvantaged children and young people the opportunity to increase their creative potential and grow their life chances. Founded by Debbie Wright (Chief Executive) the project nurtures local children from a wide variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds in the same way a greenhouse nurtures saplings growing towards the sun – hence the name! The project, and the wider Tiber Project that has overseen the redevelopment of the school site, offers children and young people a path of growth in an area that continues to face many challenges with poverty and urban deprivation. As we came to learn during our visit the success of the project has been driven by Debbie and the local community who are passionate about improving Toxteth to make it a better place to live and grow up, but also to make it a shining example across the world.

On arrival at Tiber Square at 9:30am we were met by Debbie as well as Paul Khan (Chair of The Greenhouse Project) who gave us a tour of the pantry and helped us to place our food donations into the correct place in the market. We immediately got stuck in assisting the 17 volunteers that are required each week to operate the stalls by helping to set up tables and stack the food and hygiene items that would be

available to visitors. As we moved through the square and chatted to volunteers helping to set things up, we were met with cheer and kindness and the sense of openness afforded by the physical arrangement of the stalls jumped out at us.

Across the pantry there were a selection of products on offer including: cereals, tinned goods such as pasta sauces and soups, halal meat (kindly provided at cost by Kamal and Ali at Spendwell Supermarket a local Toxteth supermarket), cleaning and hygiene products, and a dedicated section for fresh fruit and veg (Fairshare fruit and veg is kindly supplemented by the local Manchester Superstore – located directly over the road from the pantry).

After assisting the volunteers in setting up the pantry we were then introduced to the Volunteer Manager Cherise Smith and Young Peoples co-ordinator Steven Nze. Both Anna and Nze play a vital role in coordinating the mobile food pantry every week, with Nze’s role also focussing on ensuring that young people in Toxteth’s views and needs are represented through The Greenhouse Project’s young people steering group.

As the food pantry opened and people began to filter into the square, we were able to spend some further time with Debbie to understand the origins of The Greenhouse Project and take a look around the site. Debbie’s passion for nurturing young people shone through from the moment we met her and hearing the history of the project left us incredibly inspired at its achievements so far. Started by Debbie in her bedroom in

Toxteth in 1997 they focus on offering disadvantaged local children the chance to flourish through creative projects in arts and play. As an inner-city area south of Liverpool city centre that has received large amounts immigration from across the world since the 19th century, Toxteth is a community of many different races, ethnicities and nationalities, and many residents of all backgrounds are affected by poverty. As a proud Toxteth resident Debbie wanted her daughter and children of all backgrounds to be able to learn about the community’s many cultures and develop the skills they need to be successful in life. As a result Debbie founded The Greenhouse Project and hasn’t looked back since.

Over the years The Greenhouse Project has grown and worked with over 20,000 young people and 250 schools across Merseyside as well as having exhibitions and performances alongside major cultural institutions such as the Tate Gallery and National Museums Liverpool. While the project has grown from Debbie’s bedroom to offices, a learning space and outdoor play area at Tiber, its core values remain the same. As Debbie showed us round the learning space, we were able to see first-hand the many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds of the children and young people the project supports. Debbie informed us of the hardship that some children that come to the centre have to endure with lack of food and clothing an issue regularly encountered. The centre supports children and parents however they can with meals, and hearing the harrowing stories of children without coats and shoes in winter left an imprint on us all of the stark reality of poverty in the UK.

As well as the early education learning we witnessed Debbie also told us about the support the project gives to young people all the way up to 18 years old (in some cases even further) and the responsibility and leadership roles they have been able to facilitate through some of their initiatives. Debbie explained that as part of the wider Tiber Project regeneration of the former school site where Tiber Square now sits, young people from Toxteth were put in charge of finding out what would benefit the local area and putting in place a plan for making this happen. This initiative was led by a young people’s steering group who decided that among other plans a full size 3G football pitch was vital to the regeneration effort and that the pitch must be a beacon for the city and a place that people would know nationally and internationally. The 3G pitch has since been built with the full project overseen by the steering group, and the pitch now attracts people from across Liverpool with thousands of people using the surface each week. As well as the success of the built facilities the steering group has progressed young people to further education and employment, something that is a source of pride for Debbie and the staff that have supported some of the members of the group from an early age.

After our tour with Debbie we returned to Tiber Square to see the food pantry in action with visitors coming and going as they exchanged friendly conversations with volunteers and picked up their goods for the week. This was a fairly normal Thursday we were told, with the food pantry on average serving 85 shoppers per week – a figure that has increased by over 10% in the last year. Since May 2021 the pantry has benefitted over 20,000 family members (considering households supported by the shoppers) and it was clear from our visit the importance of the pantry to shoppers who had family members at home that they were providing for. After all shoppers had visited the pantry, we helped to dissemble the stalls and pack away the pantry ready to be put back out the following Thursday. For many volunteers as well as shoppers the pantry offers a community hub to meet and chat with friends and as well as the benefits to those using the pantry many volunteers have gone on from their work here to jobs across a variety of sectors.

Overall our day spent at The Greenhouse Project and Tiber Square mobile food pantry was inspiring as well as eye-opening. While we hope that in the future poverty of all forms can be eradicated, it was incredible to see the passion and commitment of local people helping those in need and any support The Mailing Room can give them is most definitely going to a worthy cause. We will continue to support these efforts as we believe in offering support to those who need it most. We hope that this article gives an indication of why donations to these causes are so important and we hope you can support these causes in whatever way you can.

Finally, we would once again like to thank Debbie and Paul from the Greenhouse Project for welcoming us on the day and say thank you to Nze and all the volunteers who welcomed us with open arms and answered any questions we had. We hope to be back soon to support your incredible work.

To find out more about The Greenhouse Project or support them visit their website here – https://greenhouseproject.org.uk/.

To find out more about Fans Supporting Foodbanks or support them visit their Facebook page here – https://en-gb.facebook.com/FansSupportingFooddbanks/