Out & About Winter 2018

T he scene was reminiscent of the Great Hall at Hogwarts. A dozen volunteers, kitted out in burgundy tabards, were bustling around the long tables, adding their own magical flourish to any last- minute preparation. Others sat waiting, exchanging jokes with each other across the room, a hearty smell wafting through from the adjoining kitchen. Stacks of bananas, wilting on top of each other, looked happy to be bruised. There were hundreds of them – piled up in two massive boxes to the side of the Salvation Army hall, beside the tea and coffee. Some were laid out on the long tables with other pieces of fruit and muffins, all ready to greet the flurry of people that would soon come through the doors to what, on every Thursday evening, is transformed into the temporary haven that is Newbury Soup Kitchen. One woman walked around armed with a clipboard. She called the group in for a briefing ahead of what was to be – judging by the extraordinary number of bread rolls stacked up at the back of the hall – Newbury’s feeding of the 5,000.

Newbury, many of whom also receive help from homeless charity Loose Ends and Eight Bells for Mental Health, both of which work in tandem with the Soup Kitchen’s aims in supporting the town’s most disadvantaged. When Meryl’s first launched her project, 11 clients came in and there were nine volunteers. The scheme has since grown into a fully-fledged, welcoming drop-in centre that provides invaluable support every week for up to 60 vulnerable people with complex emotional and mental needs: rough sleepers, sofa surfers and those with learning difficulties who might be illiterate, among others. An impressive total of 55 volunteers juggle a weekly Thursday rota – but the logistics of the task at hand transcend even the most menial of duties – such as scribbling CONTAINS NUTS onto a paper plate of chocolate brownies or triumphantly dolloping a portion of sausage pasta bake onto a plate. Crates of food must be collected from pick-up points – such as Greggs and Pret a Manger in Northbrook Street who, along with Waitrose and Aldi, support the kitchen by supplying their unwanted or unsold produce. The freezers at Tesco Metro happened to break on the day I dropped by, so the store decided to cook most of its prepped bread and donate it to the kitchen. Although the kitchen is open to visitors between 6pm and 8pm, the volunteers put in a lot more hours in order to make it work. On the previous day, some of them had undergone Naloxone training – the drug used to temporarily reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. Some of the team start setting up as early as 4.15pm for a punctual 6pm opening, before the continual clean-up operation begins of clearing up plates, washing up and wiping down tables. Among the papers nestled on Meryl’s clipboard are sheets allocating tokens for use in the town’s laundrette or the shower facilities at Northcroft Leisure Centre, the latter a collaboration with West Berkshire Homeless. Meryl also assists those who need formal documentation in order to open a bank account or access benefits and works with the Community Furniture Project, which has helped source road-safe bikes for users as well as supplying, when possible, the odd fridge or freezer. “I thought I was going to feed people for two hours a week, turn up and go home,” laughs Meryl, who had previously run her own recruitment agency in London for nine years. “It’s not like that now. “Some of them are broken, we’re just here to try and give them a lot of love.” One of the regulars who gets a big dose of that love is Andy Brown. The 29-year-old tells me he’s slept rough in the town’s former Bayer car park since becoming homeless seven They are not all street homeless. Some are sofa surfers and some are those who can’t afford to pay their bills or for food

Mum-of-three Meryl Praill set up Newbury Soup Kitchen in November 2016 after initially volunteering through the town’s food bank – prompted her family’s own brush with economic hardship during the last financial recession. The charity provides a safe space for the town’s homeless and disadvantaged every Thursday evening from 6pm- 8pm and is based in the Salvation Army Hall, Newbury, loaned to them by the local Salvation Army unit. “I call us a dysfunctional family – I don’t know if that’s appropriate or not – but both clients and volunteers are like a family,” says Meryl. “There are people who come to the Soup Kitchen who tell us stuff they won’t tell others. We’re the only people they trust. “They are not all street homeless. Some are sofa surfers and some are those who can’t afford to pay their bills or for food.” In its nascent days, Meryl’s brainchild lived up to its name quite literally – serving only soup and beans to clients who dropped by. It was a modest offering to the homeless community of

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