Many locals will have seen our charity van, affectionately named Ronnie, driving around. You may have seen Ronnie yourself. But do you know what he gets up to and where he goes?
Ronnie works very hard for us. On average, he is on the road 29 days out of every month, travelling 1400 miles every month!
In a typical week, as well as doing lots of local journeys to collect food, he goes east to Birmingham, north to Oswestry, and north-west to Mullers in Market Drayton. And that’s just the harvesting; he also delivers to local groups including Severn Hospice and Shrewsbury Ark, plus 15 community Foodshares.
Because of his versatility, Ronnie serves numerous ad-hoc needs each week too, collecting non-food items from Lidl one week, food from the Dana or Hay festival another week, and transporting display equipment to events such as the Shrewsbury Food Festival.
Ronnie was donated to the Food Hub by generous freemasons in 2020 as part of their efforts to support our community through the pandemic. Having Ronnie has helped improve the efficiency of the Hub’s operation and allowed us to rescue larger volumes of food. We love Ronnie, but keeping his wheels turning doesn’t come cheap. Accounting for fuel, insurance, maintenance, and van hire for when Ronnie is off the road, we spend around £200 a week.
With the cost of living crisis and rising food prices, we are keeping Ronnie busier than ever. To ease pressure on him, we are looking for funding to add a little Ronnie to the family in the not-too-distant future. So we will have Two Ronnies!