Washington community hub Mickey's place feeds over 150 people a day as it opens pay-as-you-feel cafe to support families during lockdown

Mickey’s Place, based at St Michael's Church in Sulgrave, opened at the beginning of May after seeing how many people were struggling during the coronavirus lockdown.

Since then, a group of volunteers have been feeding more than 150 people a day and offering support to people struggling in the community.

Running as a takeaway food service, the volunteers have been helping residents who needed more than just a food package, providing them with hot meals, advice and support.

Volunteer Ruth Bell, 54, said: “Mickey’s Place is much more than a food bank, we are a pay-as-you-feel community café, and community hub. Our vision is to create a more vibrant, healthy, and economically strong community where nobody has to go hungry and nobody has to feel lonely.

“It’s vitally important to look after each other, particularly at a time like this. We wanted to offer more than just a food parcel.”

The community reaction to the hub has been extremely positive, with a number of people offering their help and support.

During lockdown, Mickey’s Place has been working with Sunderland Foodbank, Wear Recovery, Headway Wearside and Gentoo to support financially struggling residents.

In the long term, Mickey’s place hopes to be able to help people in a number of different ways, including with budget and diet planning.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper.

Thank you

How to subscribe to the print edition

It’s easy to subscribe to your local newspaper. We have arranged a special 20 per cent off subscription offer for people to take advantage of. Visit www.localsubsplus.co.uk, choose the newspaper title, the type of subscription and enter your details.