Looking Back

Big Help

In 2016, following a period of sever depression, something that I now know has blighted my life from childhood, I mustered the effort to post an envelope to the Big Help Project (Knowsley Foodbank). Inside the envelope was a volunteer application form. I knew I needed to change my life and get out of the rut I was in, volunteering seemed a way back, and a way of giving back for my discretions I believed I owed the community.

Fast forward 4 years and I was successfully heading up a project for the Big Help, centred around the prevention of paint entering our waste streams and being repurposed by the community. Then the pandemic struck and I, along with many of my colleagues, were told, “no more deliveries or collections!” lockdown had arrived and food was the biggest priority of all.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but this was my time to shine!

My mental health appeared to do a 180º turn over night! It’s hard to explain but it just did. I absorbed myself with the need to feed people, as I had done when I first began volunteering, but this was a new and increased demand. I involved myself in everything, lost track of days and times as requests for food increased and engulfed longer days and longer working weeks, but none of this seemed to matter. Storage, logistics, coordination of people and stock, collections, deliveries, donations, bulk food ordering, special requests, individual appeals, communication with community groups, and senior members of the council – what a whirlwind.

Over 6 months on, things have slowed down somewhat, my mental health is still positive and unlike many people in our community, county, country, the world, I feel OK. But wait! The second phase appears to be upon us, no time to rest, its time to prepare, with hindsight, I, we, will be ready.

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“I didn’t realise it at the time, but this was my time to shine!”

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