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“The week of lockdown we paused Lunch Club. That was quite sad because it’s a lifeline for some people, the only day they meet people or go anywhere.”
Thought for food
Jaq Bayles hears from Gary Pargeter how Lunch Positive successfully repositioned itself to serve new needs created by the coronavirus pandemic ) For community organisations, the pandemic has thrown up some very particular problems. Some may have seemed insurmountable – how do you maintain contact and a sense of togetherness when every edict seems to negate those possibilities?
Lunch Positive has proved resilient in the face of unprecedented challenges, having become aware in January that the world was on a trajectory of change and beginning conversations about what that change might be and what it would mean for the social
side of the organisation. Then events began to escalate and in March the number of HIV Lunch Club attendees started declining as people began to lose confidence about going out and being around others. Lunch Positive founder Gary Pargeter says: “Before lockdown we could see that something was going to change in terms of how we met as a community.” While it wasn’t a sharp decline, attendance dropped from around 30-50 people every Friday to around 25-30. “It was people we knew who were particularly worried and had high levels of anxiety. Their sense of vulnerability was exacerbated and they felt
“Almost without question volunteers wanted to do something useful... For things to continue they just stepped up and took on new roles. Even some who were self-isolating worked from home”
they might be more at risk, although that’s not necessarily the case if someone is HIV positive,” adds Gary. “The week of lockdown we paused Lunch Club. That was quite sad because it’s a lifeline for some people, the only day they meet people or go anywhere.” In the knowledge that many people – both existing Lunch Club members and those who had become involved through the distance befriending that had been taking place through social media and phone calls – now had nutritional support needs, Lunch Positive
