‘THEY knew that they could laugh, cry, scream, but they knew that they would go home with what they needed’, are the words of one woman from Bude who is taking it upon herself to make a difference to those in her community who are struggling.

Katie Aulsberry-Vockins, who lives with her wife Caroline and three dogs in Stratton, has big plans to ensure everyone in the Bude and surrounding areas has what they need to get by. Starting out as ‘The Pantry’, Katie set up a cupboard situated on St Martin’s Road in Stratton, offering free food items to anyone who needed it. Always unlocked, it was introduced by Katie as a way to provide food to those who may be unable to get by each week, without judgement.

The Post met with Katie, Caroline and one of The Pantry’s volunteers, Terri Haynes, to find out more about the scheme and the other projects Katie has in the pipeline.

Katie, who is known as ‘Mrs Pantry’ to many, said: “I wanted to do something — I knew that there was people in the community that needed support but weren’t ready to ask for help, or perhaps weren’t sure how to ask for help.

“I decided to put a cupboard at the top of the drive and put teas, coffees, things like that in it. I put out a message and just said, it’s never locked, it will be there forever and you can help yourself. I thought even if it’s used once or twice then that’s great.”

But things soon picked up and Katie realised that people needed more help.

“I’ve been there,” she continued. “I’ve been homeless with no food or money. I just thought to myself, what would I have needed? Hence the box! I just started helping people.

“They would come here, sit and have a cuppa and a chat. They knew that they could laugh, cry, scream, but they knew they would go home with what they needed. It just grew from there, really.”

Following the success of The Pantry, Katie began to get an influx of messages requesting baby and adult clothing. “I realised there’s obviously lots of areas that people need support with,” she said. The baby bank was soon introduced, with regular donations of baby clothes and essentials flooding in. They are also providing support to new mums. One lady the team is helping is due to have her baby in the coming months, and a hospital bag is to be given to her to take to hospital when the baby arrives. They are also providing a cot, as well as a package of items including blankets, nappies, wet wipes and more to help this lady and her baby in the first few challenging months.

And as if The Pantry and the baby bank weren’t enough to focus on, Katie has also set up some smaller projects supporting a range of people. One of these includes the Interview Ready project, which is available to anyone looking for employment, whether it’s changing jobs, going back to work after a period of time or finding their first job. The project offers valuable assets such as advice on job applications, CV writing, interview preparation, and they can also provide references to those who have volunteered with The Pantry or one of their other projects. They also have a rail of smart clothing which they offer to people preparing for a job interview. The individual is welcome to go to the rail, try different pieces on and keep the outfit they go away with.

In addition, Bude Against Period Poverty (BAPP) is to take off very soon. Katie said: “We want people to know that we’ve got it and we will give it to you. My idea for this project is to have boxes around Bude, which are ‘take boxes’, full of sanitary products that you can help yourself to what you need.

“A lot of young girls don’t want to talk about it, so if they’re not ready to ask for help then we want to ensure that we have something in place for them — also, because they’re (sanitary products) so expensive! We offer the option of reusable products and disposable, depending on what’s right for you.

“I do a lot of research and it’s not just Bude (that experiences period poverty), it’s the surrounding areas too. It’s unbelievable the amount of young girls who are just putting tissue in their knickers because they don’t have access or can’t afford sanitary products, and I have heard horror stories about girls having to go to hospital because they have tried inserting tissue inside themselves and can’t get it out. That should not happen in this day and age. I don’t want to hear of any girl in Bude going without sanitary items. I would rather they come here.

“We really want to break down stigmas on a range of things — whether you’re struggling with your mental health, poverty, or if you’re gay or disabled. We are open to anything and everyone, but we also understand how hard it is to ask for help.”

One of The Pantry’s volunteers, Terri, said: “We all have our own struggles. We all understand the pride and not asking for help, but you just don’t get judged for struggling here.”

Katie admitted she had remained anonymous for some time before, with her anxiety often playing in the back of her mind: “One lady approached me and said, ‘You’re Mrs Pantry, aren’t you?’ and it just stuck. From there on everyone called me Mrs Pantry. I have anxiety, amongst other things, which would hold me back and make me feel like I couldn’t do some things. But it got to the point where I couldn’t hide myself anymore so I found some volunteers to get on board to help out. Age doesn’t matter, it’s experience and personal experience.

“I wanted them (the volunteers) to be just normal people — and I don’t like the word ‘normal’ because what is normal? No one will be paid for it, but I would rather have people who have empathy and loyalty, which are really important qualities to me. I have been really lucky that the volunteers that came forward do understand and they do have that love. They just fit in and become part of the family, we all just muck in.”

Katie recently spoke at the most recent Bude Together meeting, where she was invited to speak during a five-minute slot and received huge amounts of interest from people wanting to help. Katie and Caroline also held their first Easter event in the spring at their home, where they invited families along to find out more about The Pantry, the services they offer and giving them a chance to meet other people with a cup of tea and a slice of cake.

In the summer, Katie and Caroline also attended the Bude Earth Festival, where they promoted one of Katie’s up and coming projects, the Liddiard Project, in memory of her friend who sadly passed away last year.

“It’s a growing food project,” Katie said. “It will be split in half — one part will be for adults who are perhaps struggling with their mental health, have a disability, or just want to get out of the house. They will be growing plants and food that we can use for our regular service users.

“The other half of the project will be for teens, as a way of giving them something to do, because there’s a lot of problems in Bude with antisocial behaviour. It will give them a little bit of responsibility and show we’ve got a bit of belief in them. They will be contributing towards our food parcels that we give out, so we can say as well as this produce (from The Pantry) you can have these tomatoes, herbs, things like that.

“It will be down to the teenagers to show them how to look after it. They need to know how to delegate jobs, working with a rota, looking after the produce — and they need to learn that if they don’t do it, people will go without.”

Katie hopes to hear from young people aged 15 to 18 years in the hope of instilling a sense of responsibility and community spirit into them before they leave school and enter adulthood. This project is set to start within the next few months so that produce can be ready for next season.

Throughout the summer holidays, The Pantry has been trialling ‘The Pantry Diner’ school meals for local children and their families. All food for these events has been donated by The Real Junk Food Project, saving lots of produce and food items going to landfill.

“It’s always a two-course meal, and we have had toys kindly donated by the library, as well as a drawing and craft table,” Katie continued. “It’s very much a family thing, which is what we wanted it to be. For some of these families, it’s the only hot meal they will have all day.

“It’s about bringing the community together. If the community just work together and be a bit more understanding then I think we can achieve anything.”

Similarly, The Pantry team have been holding uniform swap events, where people can swap their children’s school uniform that doesn’t fit anymore, or donate old uniform to children still in the local schools.

Friday, August 30 was the last school meal, with children returning to school this week. “It was a bit of a trial thing,” she said. “The plan from now is to hold these meals every school holiday. If we can get double the amount of volunteers we can do more of these events in the holidays too.”

The Pantry team will be attending this year’s ‘Budelicious’ event where they will be teaching people how simple it can be to make the most of ingredients to create cheap and nutritious weekly meals at home. This will also promote their new supper clubs, which will be introduced to the community soon.

Terri said: “It would be nice to be able to reach different people too. I live in Whitstone and there’s a lot of elderly people there who could be feeling isolated or going without. It would be nice to have one in Bude and some a little further out, somewhere that’s accessible with good kitchens and is warm — somewhere to have a hearty meal and activities that their families can come along to. They could sit with the kids and teach them different things like knitting, crocheting, just sitting and doing the crosswords, even.

“Fundraising has been the troublesome part,” Katie said. “We get drips and drabs. We did the car boot once and were at the carnival where we were allowed to raise some money. But we’ve had to buy a storage unit for all the donations we get, which was about £70 and basically all of our money gone.”

The ultimate goal for The Pantry is to have their own premises in Bude, where people will be able to access The Pantry, baby bank and computers for the Interview Ready project. The team have also had a conversation with Devon and Cornwall Police about providing a registered ‘safe place’. Katie said: “I think it is needed. I have had a conversation with someone from Devon and Cornwall Police about creating a registered safe place for people in crisis. For people experiencing a mental health crisis, I think the nearest cells are in Newquay. Even if it’s just a minor crisis, they get taken down to Redruth and that’s no good for people in Bude. It would be good to have somebody there to give them somewhere safe to sit and give them a cup of tea until a decision can be made on what the best thing to do is, for example if they are a danger to themselves or other people. They might want a family member or friend to go with them, so we can just keep them safe in that moment — that can mean so much to someone.

“Too many people lose their lives in this area, there’s too many people isolated and there’s too many men feeling alone, especially farmers. I would love a room like this, and I want it to be warm and inviting. If someone is homeless and just needs to nap for an hour then they can go there. When somebody is struggling they often just need someone to say, how can I help?

“Similarly for people escaping domestic violence, where can they go around here? If we had a safe place then they would know they can go there. I’d like to have the one stop shop and have a support section that is a safe place. You can’t plan your crisis.”

Katie would like to open up a crisis helpline to people locally: “That’s always been my goal, is to have a line open to those who need it. I’d like to get a mobile phone so that we as volunteers can take it in turns to be on-call. When we have our premises and have our safe place, people can call and say ‘I need help, this is what’s happened’ and we can direct them to the safe place.”

Katie has undergone training and is now a qualified cognitive behavioural therapist. She runs a team of eight volunteers, all of which fit in where they can within the different projects under The Pantry, but they are on the lookout for more volunteers and people who can help the team where possible.

Katie added: “I wanted it to be organic and grow how the community wanted it to grow. We can support each other if we’re having a bad day.

“Our front door is always open. We will do our very best to help you.”

The Pantry holds its events, including supper club and school meals, at Bude Methodist Church Hall.

For those who would like to volunteer for The Pantry, get in touch with Katie by messaging ‘The Pantry in Bude’ Facebook page, email [email protected] or call 01288 488 307. People can also find out more via the Volunteer Cornwall website.