Leslie pantry helping the most vulnerable in the community
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Starting from humble beginnings, the pantry’s founder Gayle Wilson initially provided food from a table at the town’s Station Hotel’s beer garden with donations from the community.
Now, six months later, the pantry has moved to a permanent location at the sports pavilion at Quarry Park with an estimated 2,700 food parcels given out since the start of the pandemic.
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Hide AdGayle, from Leslie, said: “At the start of the pandemic my husband and I were discussing the amount of people who would be struggling due to Covid. We had a really long talk about it and thought of ideas in ways which we could help.
"The next day I wrote a post on Leslie’s community Facebook group to ask people in the area their thoughts on starting a pantry for people who may be facing hardship – the response that I received was generally positive with most people replying that it was a good idea.
"The Station Hotel offered me a space to start distributing the food parcels in its covered beer garden and after three weeks we had practically taken over all of the picnic tables as there were so many donations coming in from the people of Leslie.”
As support for the pantry grew, Gayle and her team of volunteers needed to find a new home.
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Hide Ad"We were able to move the pantry from the hotel to the sports pavilion at Quarry Park,” Gayle adds. “The amount of support that we have received has been absolutely amazing, on top of donations from the community, Fife Council and Asda Glenrothes have also been really helpful – especially Michelle Stevenson, Asda’s community champion, she has been fantastic!”
"Anyone can come and visit the pantry, we don’t require any referrals and won’t ask any questions as to why you are visiting.
"There are always two volunteers at the pavilion, and we find that a lot of people visit us just for a chat, we are not just a pantry, we are also a community hub where people can come in and see a friendly face.”