A LOCAL bakery and a church initiative have teamed up to provide free meals for those in need in their community this winter.

The Dartmoor Bakery and the Horrabridge Love Your Neighbour church first joined forces in the summer when running their ‘pay it forward’ scheme. The bakery, run by Avis Jones, took donations and prepared free lunches for children during the school holidays and Ali Mansfield, methodist pioneer from the church, picked them up and delivered them. The team have now chosen to continue the scheme by providing lunch meals of soup and rolls to people in the Horrabridge and Yelverton communities and are helped by their employees and fellow volunteers every Tuesday lunchtime.

Ali said: ‘When Avis came to offer to partner together to support the community throughout the winter with meals of hot soup and warm bread fresh from the Dartmoor Bakery ovens, I thought this was a great opportunity, not only to work together but build stronger connections with those in the community who are in need or may not be able to get out and about. Over the last few weeks when volunteers Tina, Becky and I have been doing our soup runs we’ve been able to build relationships and friendships with many different people in the community, share stories, learn more about people and those they have in their lives who support them. It builds a bigger picture of what Horrabridge is like and there’s so much that goes into supporting one another.’

This week, Ali and Tina (pictured) braved the inclement Dartmoor weather to make their usual deliveries. Best friends Jill and Margaret who live in Horrabridge eat their soup meal together at one of their houses every Tuesday lunchtime. Margaret said: ‘I just want to say thank you very much. Everyone has been so kind and this is so helpful, not to mention it’s brilliant soup! It’s so nice to know that people outside are thinking of you, as we always are of them.’

One hundred-year-old Horrabridge resident Charles Tipley said upon receiving his meal this week: ‘It’s lovely to receive this visit. Neighbours are really important and people look out for one another.’

The soup on offer differs every week to provide variety and is often suited to vegetarians in order to accommodate more people. So far, residents have enjoyed flavours such as tomato, parsnip and sweet potato, vegetable, pumpkin spice and pea and mascarpone.

Ali said: ‘If there is someone in the community who would like a soup lunch, they need only get in touch. We have about 20 regulars. Whoever we’ve given soup to, we will continue to if they would like it. We deliver in Horrabridge for now but if someone contacted us from Yelverton we’d also deliver to them. We’re planning to continue doing this throughout the winter.

‘Not only are we helping the Dartmoor Bakery by delivering meals to others, they’re helping us by making the meals and packing them up individually ready to be sent out. We did this during covid lockdowns too — making our own meals and getting them out to those who needed them.

‘It can mean so much to people as well just to have a visit and for them to know we’ll be coming to see them, such as those who have been unwell or who are on their own. Providing people with soup and a bread roll may seem such small thing but for someone to know we can support them is really important because the greater message we can send to people is that they matter. A simple act of kindness can mean everything. One week we delivered to a lady who wasn’t very well so we made contact with a neighbour who went in to help. We put the meal on the doorstep for her and we continue to check in with her every week.’

If you or if you know someone who is in need and could benefit from a free meal through the bakery’s pay it forward scheme, contact Ali on [email protected] or [email protected]. Alternatively, donations are welcome in store at the bakery or through their website at: https://dartmoorbakery.com