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01 February 2021 Hertfood: Feeding Hertford during the Pandemic

HertFood: Feeding Hertford during the Pandemic       01 February 2021

Speaker: Debs Bonfield

Despite appearances, not all Hertford is well off and the coronavirus pandemic has accentuated this, especially among families with children whose parents need to go out to work, whatever the risks.

Debs Bonfield has run Manic Ceramics in Port Vale, Hertford, for the past 17 years. Manic Ceramics describes itself as a paint your own pottery studio but that is only the half of it. It runs art and craft workshops for toddlers to Junior Manics (no doubt an apt description) to adults, as well as teddy bear picnic parties and create at home kits.

But when the pandemic struck in early 2020, manic is the only way to describe Debs’ enormous efforts on behalf of the community.

First, she volunteered as an emergency responder within the existing St John’s Ambulance and Red Cross network on the 2am-8am graveyard shift, delivering prescriptions and moving blood.

During the day, she started putting arts and crafts ideas on social media, which despite its drawbacks, is a good way to get things across. On the way home at 8am she made arts and craft kits which she put in the shop for people to pick up while out for their daily exercise, and donated craft kits to key workers.

Because of Manic’s workshops, she was already in touch with several local primary schools, especially Hertford St Andrew on the Sele estate, which is designated 70% vulnerable (in contrast, most schools are around 20%) so receives extra funding.

One of Debs’ friends is Annegret Scott, a chief buying manager at Tesco, so at Easter she asked if Tesco would donate some Easter eggs. They did – 150 of them – finding the happy recipients by looking for the NHS rainbows in the children’s windows.

Debs and Annegret then contacted the local social workers to ask about the food situation. By now, the Trussell Trust food bank was becoming overwhelmed, schools were closing, and parents were having to give up work to look after their children. In Week 1 Debs and Annegret bought food for 10 families out of their own money; in Week 2 it was 18 – all fresh fruit and vegetables rather than tinned.

Although nearby Hollybush Primary had fewer vulnerable children than Hertford St Andrew, families there were also struggling, so Debs and Annegret agreed to help them too since by now children were not receiving free school lunches.

Next, they started making hampers, with a drop box outside Manics for donations. Annegret contacted wholesalers and Booker agreed to make a delivery on Fridays. Market stallholders donated leftover produce. Facebook and Just Giving pages were set up, and in the first 24 hours £2,500 was donated.

Twice weekly deliveries now started. If families contacted Debs directly, checks were made with their schools to see if it was OK. Social services were also starting to ask Debs’ and Annegret’s help for their clients.

Meanwhile as Covid continued, it became part of Debs’ role as an Emergency Responder to take the doctors with immunity from hospital to hospital. They could manage to run an Intensive Care Unit but were then too tired to drive. Often, they fell asleep or devoured the food she brought with her, since it was a long time since they last ate. One off-duty anesthetist cried because six of the patients were his own staff.

In September Annegret had to step down. As well as having four children, she could no longer continue with organising the food as well as her work for the supermarket.

By now, 50-60 families were receiving hampers every week. At October half-term a poster asking for Christmas gifts brought in over 6,000. The response was enormous, with donations from Rotary, private individuals, even the local football team. There were far more presents than were needed, enough for every school in Hertford, Ware, Welwyn, Hatfield and Cheshunt. A Facebook post suggesting Costa gifts cards for teenage boys received £700 in one day!

But all this brought storage problems: some had to be stored in a friend’s basement, others in someone’s office. Debs wrapped presently madly, and on Wednesday 23rd December a team of volunteers delivered 5,500 presents, 300 hampers and 3000 bags of fresh food.

Deliveries were now twice weekly: 35 on Wednesdays, 42 on Fridays. Debs was at the shop six days a week and people were dropping off donations virtually every day. Several people, including Debs’ mother Jennifer, a member of Hertford & Ware Soroptimists, were cooking buns and meat pies. Every day the baker delivered 20 loaves. The busiest week was the second week of January, when 104 families received hampers of food. The time-consuming job of packing was done by Debs and two helpers, while three others delivered the food. Every volunteer was Covid-tested weekly, as they were considered key workers. Every Saturday the White Lion in Bengeo spent £150 of its own money as well as donations on fruit and vegetables that people could take free from a stall in front of the pub and has pledged to continue doing this while it remains closed. One husband and wife couple made donations separately, with strict instructions that the other should not know what they were doing!

Occasionally Hertfood’s generosity would be taken advantage of, but many parents felt ashamed or embarrassed to be unable to feed their children. Often both parents were working but as the schools were closed, they were having to find childcare for the children and couldn’t’t make ends meet. It was important that they shouldn’t feel pitied so if necessary, the helper would leave the bags in the doorway, knock, and then sit in the car to make sure they were taken in.

The amazing efforts by the community gave hope to the people who were struggling. It showed them that people cared about them and they were not on their own, and they particularly appreciated that the food was home-made.

Debs and Annegret and all their helpers did this because they realised that children were not getting enough food and they reckoned, quite simply, that they were entitled to a hot dinner. Debs has declined awards and been pursued by national newspapers, but she prefers to remain anonymous. Nevertheless, the people of Hertford are enormously grateful to her for the amazing amount of work she has put in for them at their time of great need.

A brief word on finance: as well as huge donations from the public, Hertfood has received £1,000 in grants from Hertford Council. It is not set up as a charity since although this would give it access to many grants, it would mean spending a large amount of time on paperwork – time which Debs feels is better spent in providing immediate help. The Just Giving page continues, although it takes a percentage in fees and keeps the money for four weeks. There is also an Amazon wish list, where donors can buy things for delivery to Hertfood; on one day recently, 161 parcels arrived at Debs’ house which took Amazon’s driver 40 minutes to unload!

The work continues.