Shepperton Lockdown Doorstep, neighbour led-initiatives in times of Lockdown

The lovely Kim Fahey, featured in our ‘In conversation with…’ series, told us about this initiative she’s been taking part in since the beginning of May.

Shepperton Lockdown Doorsteps started at the beginning of May when I heard of someone doing a similar project in a different town and thought it could work well in Shepperton. We had all been thinking of what we could do to help the community during lockdown and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to raise some funds for 'Bags of Food' run by Jubilee church in Shepperton as they are the sole provider of food bank services to the TW17 postcode area.

The idea was simple, we take a photo of a household, on the doorstep of their home and in return for a digital copy of the photograph, they donate either financially, through our Just Giving page (which I will attach below), or with in-date food/ toiletries to either the box in the porch of Jubilee church (weekdays only) or the trolly in Sainsbury's in Shepperton high street. After a week we decided to expand the project to include businesses and institutions which have stayed open to serve the community during lockdown such as high street shops and schools, which was a lovely and popular addition to the project.

We have a dedicated Facebook group where, with permission, we put our photographs although we are working towards a book and exhibition at an appropriate time.

The response has blown us away, to date we have raised just under £3500 and photographed around 250 households, businesses, and institutions.