LCEP in Action: Supporting The Felix Project
The cost of food in the UK has risen rapidly over the past year, with Office for National Statistics figures showing that between December 2021 and December 2022, food prices rose, on average, by 16.9%. These price rises, along with other effects of the cost-of-living crisis, have led households around the country to make difficult decisions, particularly regarding food. The Food Foundation states that 13.7 million people experienced food insecurity in September 2022, including 4 million children, with foodbanks and community food projects seeing huge increases in demand. We spoke to The Felix Project’s Strategic Volunteer and EDI Lead, Lucy Heyderman, about what the organisation does and the support they received over the festive period from other voluntary and community sector organisations.
The Felix Project is Fareshare’s partner in London, coordinating food redistribution from their warehouses in North, South, East and West London, to over 1000 community organisations around the capital. As well as the warehouse at their Poplar (East London) site, they also have a kitchen, known as Felix’s Kitchen, from where they cook between 2000 and 4000 meals a day to be distributed in the community. “We work with around 500 different food suppliers varying from farmers to delivery services to supermarkets,” Lucy said. “We either collect the food from them or they deliver to us and sometimes an intermediary will pick it up. Most comes directly to the warehouse where it is sorted, predominantly by volunteers, made up into orders and then delivered out into the community.”
During the pandemic, The Felix Project saw a huge increase in the number of organisations joining their waiting list hoping to receive surplus food, and whilst they had managed to reduce this as restrictions eased, the cost-of-living crisis has seen numbers rocket back up. “When you hear what the community organisations are seeing on the ground, it is tough for people. There are now so many people who are in work accessing foodbanks, the breadth of food poverty seems to be increasing,” Lucy explained.
In December, she became concerned that a lack of volunteers may mean that food wasn’t going to reach where it was most needed over the festive period. Speaking about the situation, Lucy said: “At our East London site, which is the biggest, when we see a drop in numbers (of volunteers) there, the fear sets in a little bit.” There was not just a single factor that had led to this, with several things adding pressure. “Demand was slightly up, but we were really impacted by the fact that corporate volunteers were no longer volunteering with us over that period. Also, the unpredictability, we just could not guarantee that we would have our usual volunteer base that we need to provide support. At other times of year, when we can’t get food out the door, that has an impact, but there is something about the festive period that feels particularly poignant,” she said.
Although they had initially needed drivers to help deliver food, they also had other roles that needed filling. “We needed warehouse and kitchen assistants. In the warehouse, they were packing food into orders, maintaining the warehouse, and then in the kitchen, they helped to pack and prepare the meals,” Lucy explained. The Felix Project reached out to RE:ACT, who put the message out to their volunteer network, before recommending the VCS Emergencies Partnership (EP). Although The Felix Project had been involved with the EP previously, this was the first time the organisations had worked together on a real-life situation.
With the need for volunteers in London, the Emergencies Partnership contacted partners including Greater London Authority, and London Plus, who co-chair the London Communities Emergencies Partnership (LCEP) with the EP. Through LCEP, partners such as Islamic Relief, Muslim Charities Forum, and London Faith and Belief Forum, along with local volunteer centres, were alerted to The Felix Project’s need for support, with volunteers soon arriving to help. “It was amazing, we had so many new volunteers which was brilliant. We just need to make sure in the future we are better prepared for the influx in new people!” Lucy said.
The collective power of the voluntary and community sector was demonstrated with over 100 new volunteers supporting at The Felix Project’s East London site between the 19 - 31 December, including those from Team London and Volunteer Centre Tower Hamlets. Furthermore, since the beginning of 2023, they have seen more volunteers sign up through Team London, as well as from other organisations such as the Jewish Volunteering Network. RE:ACT were also able to support, covering over 300 volunteer hours between the 27 December and 6 January.
The situation has also provided learning opportunities both for The Felix Project and for LCEP. “I have a better understanding of the network of volunteer organisations I can tap into,” Lucy described. “We’ve got a huge volunteer base, but it was the knowledge of how to get the right communications to a new audience that was key.” Whilst for LCEP, it allowed preparations by the Emergencies Partnership and London Plus to be put into action in a real-life scenario with the project only having been launched a couple of months ago.
You can find more details about volunteering roles with The Felix Project here.
You can read more about the London Communities Emergencies Partnership (LCEP) here.