A community cafe is offering 'pay what you can' food for anyone in Leeds this Christmas.
There's lots of support available across Leeds for those who face Christmas alone, including a community cafe in Burley called Rainbow Junktion. Rainbow Junktion is a community space and food share where people can come and get a hot drink, something to eat, and take food home, similar to a food bank.
The cafe prides itself on tackling food waste and food poverty. They strive to intercept food that would otherwise be thrown away from supermarkets, restaurants and other local vendors.
As part of Rainbow Junktion's ethos, they also work on a pay as you feel or donation model to help provide to those in the community that are struggling.
Emily Carrigan, manager of Rainbow Junktion told LeedsLive: "I took over about 6 years ago and it was a small community cafe, we had three aims to fight food waste and fight food poverty.
“It’s all pay as you feel or pay as you can.
“We have people doing debt advice, social prescribing, queer mental health support, forward Leeds, we have stay and play on Thursdays.
“We have live music, board games, craft tables, there is a lot and we have really become a real community hub, especially during covid, during Covid we became a food bank, we were doing a food bank 3 days a week in the car park.
“Now RJ is a mixture of the two things, we have the cafe and now we have the foodshare, we moved away from the term food bank and due to the cost of living crisis that has been affecting people."
Emily said they moved to the term 'foodshare' to make people feel less self-aware or embarassed about asking for food and supplies. The team of volunteers provides help all year round and they will be open on Christmas Day for those who need.
Emily added: “We have just had a massive influx of donations and we have a massive team of volunteers.
“We will be open on Christmas Day, we don’t want anyone to be alone or unfed on Christmas day, people can book online or they can pop in, noone will be turned away.
“The foodshare is just shopping, we are non-referall, we do not ask any questions about why people need food and you can choose what you want.
"We need to be more positive about the narrative."
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