Mulalley helped install shelving at the Food Stop in the Old Lodge Lane Baptist Church (OLLBC), Croydon. Over the past few years, Mulalley has supported a number of services in Croydon in their bid to help the local community, this includes actively supporting the Food Stop.

Community Connect/Food Stop moves Croydon Council’s innovative Gateway approach beyond the local authority and its public sector partners into the community. It is a community-led, multi-agency (‘Alliance’) solution focused model that provides housing financial stability, homelessness prevention support, employability support and food poverty solutions for the most vulnerable residents. This enables residents to become financially stable, able to better manage their money and maximise their income through for example personal budgeting support, debt management, income maximisation and by gaining employment.

The Food Stop shop is a key part of this. Residents who sign up as members receive £15-£20 worth of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy and other foods each week for £3.50 per week, helping them save an average of £500-£700 per year on their food shopping bills. The scheme supports residents who are affected by welfare reform, in rent arrears, in financial or employment difficulties, at risk of homelessness and more.

Anita Konczak, Community Resources Delivery Manager at Croydon Council said: “Having the shelving up is a key part of OLLBC’s COVID-19 recovery planning phase. The Food Stop was set up very quickly at the start of COVID-19 and it has had to operate in a very different way to how it would under normal circumstances. OLLBC have been using their hall as a distribution centre where volunteers have been able to be socially distanced from one another whilst packing up people’s food shopping and they have been delivering the food to people’s homes. Mulalley’s support means we can now start to plan for the recovery phase and setting up as a proper shop.

Under normal circumstances, we would be hosting an event to officially launch the Food Stop, but due to COVID-19 this is not possible, for now”.

Nick Price, Mulalley Construction Division Operations Director, said: “We wanted to do something really meaningful during this difficult time and what better than to continue supporting this valuable service. I’m really pleased to hear that our support has enabled the Food Stop Service to provide much needed support to vulnerable residents within the local community”.