Members Newsletter | Issue 9
Welcome
Happy New Year and welcome to Peckham Pantry’s January 2024 Newsletter!
We hope you all had a fantastic festive season and are enjoying the New Year even though it is very cold.
Thank you to all who came along to our Christmas event and made it a special day. We had 216 customers through the pantry doors and our amazing staff made sure the customers queuing outside had hot drinks and snacks. The atmosphere was amazing, and we hope everyone enjoyed their pantry shop over Christmas!
‘Peckham Pantry serves a culturally diverse community and so having the support of Tropical Sun Foods; the UK’s #1 World Foods brand, is truly a blessing.’
Thanks to Tropical Sun Foods who came down to support the event and donated several lovely gift boxes for our customers on top of their very generous monthly contribution.
Peckham Pantry serves a culturally diverse community and so having the support of Tropical Sun Foods; the UK’s #1 World Foods brand, is truly a blessing, as it means we can offer our customers a wide range of tasty foods to cater for all communities! Our love and appreciation for Tropical Sun’s distributor Wanis International Foods also. It’s always a pleasure heading down to their East London cash and carry to collect our goodies each month!
Pecan and Southwark Foodbank’s Give a Gift of Hope campaign continues until the end of January. The donations we receive helps all Pecan’s projects, including Peckham Pantry, to challenge the effects of poverty within our communities.
Don’t forget…
To support our pantry and support the value it brings to many, please consider donating to the pantry via the Bankuet QR code or link. The Pantry is able to provide affordable food shops for their members because of the kindness and generosity of volunteers and donors.
Thank you.
Temi Okudiya
Peckham Pantry Manager
Co-op Local Community Fund
Co-op has chosen the Peckham Pantry to be their charity of the year
Co-op Members can officially support Peckham Pantry as part of the Local Community Fund from now until October 2024. membership.coop.co.uk
Pantries have been a safe haven for communities to save money during the current cost of living crisis. In addition to that, local pantries create different opportunities for communities to come together around food. So, we are delighted that Co-op has chosen the Peckham Pantry to be their charity of the year! This will have an impact on our food services within our community: www.coop.co.uk/membership
Ambassadors of the Month:
Juneann
Volunteering at Peckham Pantry has been a transformative experience for me. Having initially relied on the pantry as a customer during the challenging times of 2020, I was struck by the lifeline it provided and the warmth exuded by the volunteers. Now, after nearly a year of volunteering, I’ve come to cherish the values embedded in the Pantry
Family – kindness, support, and respect are not only extended to the customers but also shared among the volunteers themselves. The collaborative spirit and genuine companionship make each day at the pantry a fulfilling journey, where the sense of community is built on a foundation of mutual care and respect.
Pearl
I’ve had the pleasure of joining Peckham Pantry as a member and then as a volunteer. I joined in October 2022 and have been here for over a year now. My background is in Nursing, and this entails helping people, so serving at the Pantry seemed a natural progression for me in my desire to help others.
Serving at the Pantry has been a very enriching experience. I enjoy working as part of a very diverse team and during my time here I’ve learnt so much from my fellow Ambassadors
Engaging with our clients gives me so much joy, from helping them fill in their application forms and explaining our unique shopping process to making them a cup of coffee and talking about life.
The Peckham Pantry is a great place to volunteer and to give back to our wonderful community.
Peckham Pantry Steering Group
Peckham Pantry Steering Group aims to help the Peckham Pantry team develop ideas and make decisions on how to engage with Pantry members and members of the wider local community.
We are a group of members, volunteers and staff who meet once a month and organise monthly coffee mornings and other events. All pantry members and ambassadors are welcome to join! Our next meeting is on Tuesday 6 February, and meetings take place at Pecan with the option to join online. If you would like to join our Steering Group, attend the next meeting, or just share an idea for Peckham Pantry, please contact Flora on 07929 999 006.
Dignity Training for Food Services Volunteers
Do you currently volunteer with Pecan’s Food Services?
If so, Pecan is running a Dignity Training session on Friday 26 January.
If you are interested and you currently volunteer with either Southwark Foodbank or Peckham Pantry, please contact: Emily Monaghan-Coombs
If you are not a current volunteer but are interested in the training, please also get in touch.
Guarantee Our Essentials
The Trussell Trust, alongside the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, has launched a petition as part of the Guarantee our Essentials campaign, which calls on the UK government to implement an Essentials Guarantee into Universal Credit.
Universal Credit should offer support to anyone in need of help, but here at Pecan and Southwark Foodbank, we’re seeing more and more people pushed to our doors because Universal Credit doesn’t cover the cost of life’s essentials, such as food and bills.
This isn’t right and must change.
Will you help guarantee our essentials?
We need people like you to take action. You see first-hand how low levels of social security affect people in our community.
Please sign the petition today which calls on UK political party leaders to support the introduction of an Essentials Guarantee into Universal Credit, which would ensure the basic rate covers our core costs and can never be pulled below that level. You can make a difference – sign the petition now.
Oat and Banana Pancakes
Ingredients:
- 2 bananas
- 3 cups oats
- 2 1/4 cups of milk (almond milk)
Method
- Blend altogether
- Fry on a non-stick pan
It’s takes about 3 minutes a side, depending on how thick you make it.
BBC Food - £1 Dinners
Pantry Opening Times
49-53 Peckham Park Road, SE15 6TU
- Monday- 9am - 4pm
- Tuesday- 11am - 4pm
- Wednesday- 9am - 4pm
- Thursday- 10am - 7pm
- Friday- 9am - 4pm
- Saturday- 9am - 3pm
- Sunday- Closed
St Lukes Church, Chandler Way, SE15 6DT
- Monday- Closed
- Tuesday- Closed
- Wednesday- 10am - 2pm
- Thursday - Closed
- Friday - Closed
- Saturday - Closed
- Sunday - Closed
Vacancies
If you would like to become a Pantry Ambassador then contact us at:
email: pantry@pecan.org.uk
tel: 020 7277 7075.
website: www.pecan.org.uk/peckham-pantry
We currently partner with Tropical Sun, who support us by matching our purchases from them, pound for pound. We are committed to sourcing a diverse range of food for our members to have the best selection possible.Tropical Sun’s Partnership gives back to the local community, making it possible for us to stock an ethnically diverse range of food that caters to our members’ needs and tastes.
