Newcastle community centre are determined to keep food outreach going

The West End Women And Girls Centre started "Scran for the Fam" when lockdown began - and want to keep it going for the whole year

Author: Ellie KumarPublished 7th Sep 2020

A Newcastle community centre are hoping their lockdown work tackling food poverty will be able to continue through the year.

The West End Women and Girls Centre are making soup - and delivering it to vulnerable people, who have been struggling to access healthy food in lockdown.

Centre co-ordinator, Huffty McHugh, tells us more about the Scran for the Fam project;

"When we started talking to our neighbours and our friends, we were finding terrible food poverty.

"People who were shielding couldn't go out to the shops...

"So we've got a kitchen, we've got a cook, we've got great volunteers - so we started making soup."

But she explains - it is not just about the food itself;

"It's also about knocking on people's doors, and going 'are you alright? How's everything going for you?'

"Sometimes we're the only person that the person behind the door might have spoken to that day.

"So it's really important just to be there - a familiar face bringing nice hot soup and having a chat."

Huffty explains that within the first week of the project launching they delivered 400 portions of soup to people in the West End of Newcastle - and so far they've handed out over 8000.

But they're not satisfied yet - Huffty tells us they want to keep Scran for the Fam going for the whole year.

You can find out more about the West End Women And Girls Centre - and the projects they do in the community around Newcastle by following them on Twitter @WEWAGC , Instagram or their website.