A Soup Kitchen & food bank in Blackpool.
Words and photography by Dawn Mander.
Dawn Mander, a Blackpool based self taught photographer, exhibited worldwide and published internationally both in print and online. Dawn runs street photography walks in her home town of Blackpool and gives talks at local colleges, schools and photography groups. In 2018 Dawn was nominated for the RPS Hundred Heroines campaign celebrating women in photography and in 2019 exhibited with over 80 female photographers in the RPS 'Representation on the Line:(Un)framing our Identities' held in Chelsea, Doncaster and Blackpool. For the latter she also executed the roles of organiser and co-curator.
Dawn continues to work on her #DocumentingBlackpool & #PortraitofBlackpool series and is currently creating and co-curating exhibitions and community art projects at HIVE Blackpool.
Behind the bright lights of the Golden Mile in Blackpool, on the north west coast of England, lies the hidden problem of people who, often through no fault of their own, find themselves with nowhere to go.
Mark Butcher, founder of the Amazing Graze Soup Kitchen, has seen first-hand the hell of living on the streets and though Amazing Graze was originally set up as a Soup Kitchen to provide a warm meal for those in need, it has since grown and developed in to a local food bank and refuge for those needing a hot shower, clean clothes, support and advice to help those most affected by the current pandemic.
More recently long queues form outside Amazing Graze Soup Kitchen and as the pandemic grips the UK, the main priority has been ensuring the safety of everyone who comes to Amazing Graze, whether it’s someone needing help, volunteers, or someone making a donation and I noticed as the evening moves on more and more people arrive to pick up food parcels, hot meals and the basic necessities for everyday life.
Chatting to young families, former hospitality workers and others who have lost their jobs during the Covid crisis, the talk is always about how the latest lockdown is having a severe impact on their mental health, how they will cope and what is going to happen once we are out of lockdown but so many businesses have closed their doors for good.
By the end of the evening Mark and his wonderful team of volunteers start cleaning up and preparing for another day helping those less fortunate and it really is amazing that one man, Mark Butcher, and his army of volunteers. Food banks, soup kitchens and charities helping the homeless seem to be a common sight across the UK and I wonder to myself how are we going to recover from this crisis.
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