We’ve received a lot of non-perishables that were left over from the Leys community larder.  Abuot a dozen food parcels have been handed out, either at the virtual fridge events or delivered by volunteers.

People have been responding to Facebook requests.  Yesterday a young family needed size 1 and 5 nappies and baby food, and within hours two people had brought nappies to the virtual fridge.  They will be delivered by another volunteer later today.

It’s lovely to see the community banding together like this.

The virtual fridge events are going really well, with several crates of food going at each session.  A local resident has organised a rota of volunteers to run the fridge; the local Manna Cafe is holding onto the food in between volunteers picking it up and other volunteers running the fridge; and care packages are being distributed during the fridge events.

So far we have received the surplus food from Turl Street Kitchen as it was shutting for the coronavirus duration; and have been promised the surplus food from St. Edward’s School.

People taking the food have been very generous with donations: we have collected about £30 so far to go towards hand sanitiser.  We had to buy 5 litres for £99.95, but have sold 3 litres at cost to the Abingdon and Witney fridges and a church-run cafe, leaving us with 2 litres and £40 cost.

I have also been getting multiple requests for food parcels.  So far the Food for Charities supplies are holding, but at some point the donations will be used to buy food for food parcels.

We have had to buy 5 litres of hand sanitiser at £99.95 so that we can run the virtual fridge events.  The Rowse honey container is finding a new use:

We’re making three of the five litres available to other charities at cost, in the hope that we won’t get close to using even two litres of the stuff.

Also we’re preparing food parcels for people in need.  They are available at the Manna Cafe above the Botley Coop, or at the virtual fridge events.  Three have already been taken:

We had agreed with St. P&P church, who have an elderly/frail congregation, that we would shut the Botley community fridge as soon as the first coronavirus case was identified in Oxford.  That happened last Sunday, and we shut the fridge on Monday.

I thought that we’d have a little holiday from picking up and distributing fresh food, and my only worry was finding somewhere that could distribute non-perishables to people in need.  I told several of the other community fridges that they could have ‘our’ food for the duration…

… and then I received some lovely emails from several women who were wondering whether it might be possible to keep the Botley fridge alive in some virtual form, say by delivering the food to local children’s groups, or cooking it and delivering it to people who needed food.

So on Wednesday we trialed a ‘virtual fridge’ outside the library from 3:15 to 4:15pm: we set up 7 crates of food, and several of us basically said ‘come and get free food’ to anyone passing by.  Six of the crates went!

Since then (today is Friday) we found a place to store the food between when it is delivered and when it will be distributed, in the Manna Cafe.  It’s not a perfect location: on the first floor, on the opposite end of the shopping precinct.  But it’s better than keeping it at one of our homes.  We’re hoping that we can find a closer place, possibly in Seacourt Hall, but that needs to go through various committees first.

We have also come up with a plan.  Several parents from the local school will be running a virtual fridge, again outside the library, today and next week every day Tuesday – Friday.  We had been hoping to get young people from St. Edward’s School to run a weekend virtual fridge, but I just found out that their school won’t allow it because of the virus.  The library also can’t hold onto, and distribute, non-perishables to people in need on coronavirus grounds.

Because of coronavirus, we are having to run the virtual fridge with a couple of rules:

1. Nobody with coronavirus symptoms should get near the food
2. All volunteers and fridge users should stay at least 1m away from each other
3. We will provide sanitising hand gel (which should be delivered today, in the meanwhile we’ll use baby wipes) which fridge users will need to use before they can touch the food
4. Volunteers are asked to become familiar with NHS information about coronavirus.

So, at the time of writing this, the Botley fridge has arisen from the ashes like a phoenix (or at least a baby phoenix).  We will have regular ‘virtual fridges’ for at least a week, we have found a place to store the food, we have a coronavirus protocol, and we are in the process of trying to find better accommodation.  I’m delighted, though the vacation from the fridge will have to wait.

Thank you very much to the Wallingford food bank for replenishing the Botley community fridge’s supply of baked beans and pasta; and to Valeo/Rowse for lots of lovely glacier fruits.  Our supplies of non-perishables had been getting low, but are now looking healthy again.

This chart shows how many kilos of food have gone through the Botley community fridge since April 2018.  This is the MINIMUM, since some food gets dropped off with rough sleepers en route to the fridge, and some food gets dropped off at the fridge whose weight doesn’t get recorded.  About 6 tonnes per year, and an average of 2ookg/wk in Dec 19 / Jan 20.