Oxford Mutual Aid is a grassroots network which was established, like many similar groups, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their practices are rooted in Mutual Aid principles - that only when we share and redistribute, and support each other, will everyone in our community have access to the resources they need. The food bank is a 7 days per week operation, almost entirely run my volunteers, redistributing food to people who are struggling across Oxford.

Last week OMA delivered food parcels to 670 people in 238 households, including 390 adults, 210 children and 70 babies. These are people who receive food support from the food bank every week. In addition to the regular deliveries they also provided 22 food parcels to people experiencing homelessness rehoused at the YHA Oxford, and supported approximately 30 households through their work with the Syrian Sisters and Oxford Asian Women’s Voice.

Requests for emergency help with food continue to be worryingly high. 105 Emergency food parcels were supplied to 258 people between Monday and Sunday last week.

Our regular Wednesday shift has been a little quieter for parcel packing in the last couple of weeks thanks to some reorganisation of delivery routes, so this week we were asked to finish prepping the Wednesday evening deliveries and then make a start on getting the food parcels ready for Thursday. The daytime shifts are usually a bit lower on volunteer numbers, so getting ahead by preparing the tins, bread, dried goods, fruit and vegetables the night before takes the pressure off the Thursday morning team.

Well done everyone, particularly our less experienced and new parcel-packers. There's a lot to take in for this task and you all did a great job!

Welcome to GoodGym Laura and Ruby.