For more than a year, both Your Salisbury Pantry, the social supermarket on Catherine Street, and The Pantry Partnership, a local social enterprise based at ‘Pantry in the Park’ (the former Bowls Club) in Victoria Park, have been working together.

Both projects connect people with food, but in different ways, making them part of the tapestry of food projects across the city.

Your Salisbury Pantry focuses on giving people on low incomes access to low-cost food shopping and was set up by the Salisbury City Council Communities Team in 2021 as a way to sustain the food response that was run from City Council community centres during the pandemic.

Separately, The Pantry Partnership has a key aim to save surplus food from going into the bin and to bring people together to cook and share food, particularly those who are isolated in the community.

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The one-year-old partnership between the two organisations sees volunteers come together to cook, chill and freeze meals made from surplus which Your Salisbury Pantry stocks in their freezers for their clients.

Both projects require the hard work and dedication of many volunteers and both are always looking for people to join their volunteer teams.

Councillor Victoria Charleston said: “Volunteers play a fantastic and vital role in supporting the community and helping members get the food that they need. With flexible hours available, we are always grateful for those who can spare some time at the social supermarket.”

Fiona Ollerhead, Founder and Director of The Pantry Partnership, said “We are always looking for brilliant volunteers to help us in our kitchen - general support and washers up always welcome, and if you’re a chef we’d love to bring you on board to help out too. 

"We have all sorts of roles where you can practice or lend out your skills and one of the most important things for us is making sure volunteers have a great time when they come to us. 

"We are volunteer-led and people help as it suits them, doing jobs that suit them whether that be social media, cooking, organising, collecting or delivering our surplus food; everyone is welcomed with open arms.”

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Your Salisbury Pantry is currently providing low-cost shops to between 75 and 90 households per week and they hope to open for extended hours next month, which will need the support of more volunteers.

Anyone interested in volunteering with either The Pantry Partnership or Your Salisbury Pantry can contact the organisations via email here and here, respectively.