Everton in the community’s Blue Base Pantry receives a visit

Everton in the community’s Blue Base Pantry receives a visit

Everton in the Community, in partnership with Fans Supporting Food Banks, St. Andrew’s Community Network and Your Local Pantry is supporting individuals and families with a new member-run food pantry, available for everybody to access in the local community. 

The initiative follows on from Everton’s Blue Family campaign, which supported over 29,000 individuals and families with urgent support during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the effects of the pandemic, alongside the rise in the cost of living continuing to take its toll on families, the pantry aims to reduce food poverty by providing communities access to a wide range of top-quality food in return of a small subscription fee.

Everton’s players Aurora Galli and Nathalie Björn visited Everton in the Community’s Blue Base Pantry on Thursday morning to witness first-hand how it provides a vital lifeline to over 100 families each week.

The pair from Everton Women volunteered at the charity’s pantry in L4 where they helped set up stalls and distribute food and essential items to the pantry’s members. Both players also chatted to staff, volunteers and members accessing the pantry to gain an insight into the pantry’s concept and how it’s providing further support with financial and housing guidance as well as physical and wellbeing activities.

Launched earlier this year, the Blue Base pantry aims to tackle food insecurity by providing the community access to a wide range of top-quality food in return of a small subscription fee. The pantry offers supplementary shopping for families who may feel more comfortable using the service as opposed to a foodbank with affordable produce available which maintains the shopping experience.  

Both players were experiencing their first visit to an Everton in the Community project since switching to Merseyside in 2021, and were left humbled by the charity’s work.  

“It was amazing to be here today – I really liked it,”(…) “It’s great to see Everton in the Community’s great work and I’ve really enjoyed meeting people. I don’t see a lot of people other than my teammates or people at Finch Farm so it’s really refreshing seeing people!”(…) “It’s amazing that you can take food which goes to waste, to people who need it. It looks like it works really well.” 

Björn, Everton Women football player

With support from Fans Supporting Foodbanks and Your Local Pantry, the pantry, situated on Salop Street is supporting families who are either living within the Blue Base boundary, or who have a child who goes to school within the boundary.  Since its launch in June, the pantry has had 1,218 visits and over 1,000 individuals have accessed the pantry to date. 

More recently, the pantry has this summer received backing from Everton in the Community’s National Citizen Service and its participants. Since the launch of its summer programme, 112 young people have raised over £1,500 as part of their social action project – with money raised funding some of the essential items available.

“Since its launch in June, the pantry has provided a much-needed resource to hundreds of families living in the community”(…) “We’re aiming to remove the stigma that surrounds food insecurity by empowering our members to have a say in how it’s being run, and we hope both players have enjoyed the atmosphere and the community that we’ve built, today, and we’re really appreciative of their time.” 

Adam Howard, Senior Programme Manager