The Good Company – Leading People to a Poverty-Free Future.

The Good Company are striving to lead people towards a poverty-free future, whilst supporting those who need help. Suzanne and I visited one of their five food banks at St Barnabus Church in Epsom. These provide food for those most in need whilst also offering a friendly ear and advice over a drink. They have recently moved their model from providing food packages to allowing people to choose what they want and feels more like a shopping experience than a hand out. They run advice cafes too where people can drop in and just seek help when required and also three pantries. We also visited the pantry in Epsom where their members pay a nominal £5 sum a week and can then choose a number of items which would cost around £35.

Jonathan Lees, the managing director and founder spoke passionately about how they are helping to stop poverty arising, being there to support as early as possible and then from the foodbanks and advice cafes through to the pantries and ultimately hopefully a café they can not only help solve poverty issues but also loneliness, financial burdens and other issues which cause stress and often despair. They have over 6,000 visits to their foodbanks alone each year and have over 250 volunteers helping them with their work.

It was a pleasure also to meet Dafne, the operations manager in Epsom and Bex who runs the Epsom pantry