Food banks and volunteers have put into practice the universalist principle that once underpinned the welfare state
When Slung Low theatre in Leeds closed during the first lockdown in March last year, its five core staff decided to stay put. The publicly funded theatre had cash and a van, so the staff leafleted the theatre’s neighbourhood in Holbeck, an impoverished area in south Leeds, offering to help with everyday tasks that had suddenly become impossible for many people. Requests piled in for grocery shopping, dog-walking and prescription pick-ups. As workplaces closed, people started asking for food support. Before long, the local council approached Slung Low, which normally stages large-scale theatre shows in castles and town centres, to organise a food bank for a ward of 7,500 residents. So it did, supplying around 15,000 deliveries over 15 months: thousands of eggs, cereal boxes, tins of beans and pints of milk.
Slung Low’s food bank was, like its theatre performances, a large-scale production. But it was by no means the only initiative of its kind to emerge during the pandemic. Over the past 18 months, 4,000 mutual aid groups formed across the country, staffed by millions of volunteers, who patched together safety nets for those in need. Whether delivering food, helping elderly people or supporting those with deteriorating mental health, many mutual aiders fast realised that help is a two-way street. For some, it provided an immediate way to practise political values. Other volunteers I spoke with said it offered them meaning and purpose in a way that actual, paid work did not.
