Interview: Cher Smith MBE is strategy manager at Swindon Food Collective

For thousands of Swindonians the food bank is the difference between desperation and dignity.

Add together her time with Swindon Food Collective and her time with the former Swindon Foodbank, and Cher Smith has been at the forefront of this vital service for nearly a decade.

“We formed in 2018 when the former Swindon Foodbank closed.

“It was a case of the volunteers wanting to do it for themselves and for the local people, and that’s why we became a collective.

“Our first funders were Swindon Borough Council, which helped get us off the ground. We were able to provide a seamless transition, because the old foodbank closed on the Friday and the collective opened on the Monday.

“The service users never noticed a thing apart from the change in colour of uniform and the logo!”

There has been a foodbank in Swindon in one form or another for 20 years; Swindon’s was the fifth in the country.

“In 2018 we were feeding 5,000 a year. Then Covid hit, and we went from having 50 tonnes of food feeding 5,000 to 120 tonnes and 8,000 overnight.

“Obviously, that meant we had to manage that with reduced volunteers because our volunteers went from 120 down to 25. We managed it all with 25 volunteers in little bubbles!

“We grew to meet the need. We peaked at just under 11,000 18 months ago, and now we’re feeding about 9,000, but that doesn’t include the people who are fed through the charities that we donate to - the Breakfast Club, the Foyer, homeless hostels etc.

“People can get a referral through any agency in Swindon; any school, GPs, their social practitioners, health visitors, Citizens Advice, the Swindon Borough Council Live Well team, any voluntary organisation.

“We were doing three referrals in six months and we used to issue little top-up bags in between, but we realised that the top-up bags really weren’t enough.

“So we’re transitioning toward six in six months, and that would be monitored and managed by the referring agency on need.

“A family box with household cleaning products, personal hygiene, pet food, things like that, is £75-worth of food.

“It is for three days, minimum, maybe five, depending on what they’ve got in their cupboards, how good a cook they are etc.

“It’s a buffer that gives a bit of emergency relief, and also enables them to access other services that can help them.

“Little things make a difference, things like around Mothers Day, or if somebody says it’s their birthday and we have something in the cupboard that we can give them. We give it to the child to give their mum.

“We also do literacy books; if children are there we can give them a book if it’s their birthday or if they want to read. It’s just a present to make a grim day a little brighter.

“A lot of people give back when they can - some help us by volunteering.”

There are as many sequences of events which leave people needing the collective as there are people who use the collective, but anything from the sudden loss of a job to a glitch in the benefits system to an unforeseen household expense can mean the difference between having and not having enough to eat.

“If they’re working, it might be that they’ve had a sudden bill. When kids go back to school they need uniform; it might me that for a single mum a tyre exploded, and that’s over £100 - the food budget gone for a week.”

A particularly modern problem is the fact that a smartphone - and meeting the expense of having one - is all but vital these days for navigating everything from the complex benefits system to keeping up to date with job applications, interviews and other realities of the recruitment process.

The collective gives out additional hampers at school holiday times. “The Christmas and Easter ones are to give a little bit of festivity food that you and I would take for granted - mince pies, Christmas pudding, custard, pretzels, mayonnaise, stuffing, gravy mix, which would not be in our normal boxes, but it’s to help make the festive meals.

“The Summer hampers are there solely for school lunches, really, so it’s things like sandwiches and snacks for the children who haven’t got access to their breakfast clubs, their after-school clubs, their school dinners.”

Cher is originally from Hertfordshire, a member of a military family. Domestic violence disrupted family life, and Cher recalls that she was still going to court at 12 to give evidence against her father.

“You can either make that something that takes you down, and you live your life as a victim - or you live your life as a survivor and you make a difference for others.”

Originally wanting to be a doctor, Cher was on a waiting list to take up a place at the London Free Hospital when she decided to train as a nurse.

Having worked in that profession for some years, Cher came to Swindon with late husband Phil in 1985. Phil was an RAF veteran and Cher had worked for the service as a civilian.

Cher did nursing agency work at the old Princess Margaret Hospital before becoming nursing officer with Swindon Cyrenians, the charity which in subsequent years evolved into Threshold Housing Link, and where Phil was to become operations manager.

Cher’s increasingly prominent role saw her heavily involved with projects such as developing the Culvery Court shelter and planning the Carfax Street walk-in centre. She was made an MBE in 2010.

When Phil died in 2015, Cher “crashed and burned” but in 2016 when her vicar’s wife said a manager was needed at the foodbank she stepped up to the task.

People can help the work of Swindon Food Collective in many ways. An app called Bank the Food (www.bankthefood.com) lists all the foodbank’s in-store collection points, and simply buying and donating an extra food item with the family shop makes a difference.

Another app, easy fundraising (www.easyfundraising.org.uk) lists participating businesses which agree to donate to a chosen charity every time a customer spends money with them.

“The other method is cash donations or bank donations. You can donate a one-off payment on the website or you can donate a regular standing order payment. For the price of a cup of coffee a week, £2.50, a tenner a month, if you can afford it, you will be helping to feed families.”

There are other ways in which people can help, including volunteering, and there are currently vacancies for Trustees. Full details are at www.swindonfoodcollective.org