Eleanor Tiernan: Cycling around dropping off vegan food is the highlight of my week
Eleanor Tiernan
Some people are just amazing self-starters. My friend Louise is one. When the war in Ukraine started she was moved to offer accommodation to a family she had a connection to via her kids in school. The offer was taken up and it’s gone well so she’s been arranging places to stay for more and more families in the local area. One thing always leads to another with her. Start small and before you know it there’s a massive operation going on.
I take my lead from others more often. During the pandemic, all of the comedy gigs I normally do were put on notice so I had a lot of time to kick around in. After a lot of banana bread and walks in the park, I eventually found a small volunteering role with an organisation near me in London called Made In Hackney. It’s a community food kitchen that prepares a massive batch of meals twice a week which are then delivered to the community. The food is all vegan and made with sustainability in mind. It’s not means-tested. Just for people who need it most.
The transportation of the meals is done by bicycle and that’s where people like me come in. Cyclists travel around the east end of London in pairs and deliver the food to people’s doors. One of us has a big cargo bike adapted to carry the load and the other (me) does the running in and out of the buildings. Over the course of the two to three houses, I have no problem making 10,000 steps a day.
It’s the highlight of my week. In the beginning, you get paired up with people you’ve not met before. Then over the course of the journey, you inevitably learn about the person you’re with and they learn about you. It’s a great way to introduce a new perspective to your day. On the day the war broke out in Ukraine I was out cycling with the Head of Politics at a university here. I got a unique insight from her into the way academics were interpreting the event.
Since doing this, I’ve now got more knowledge of East London housing estates than a retired postman. I know whose buzzers are broken. I know which shortcuts to take to save you from cycling the long way around. I know which neighbour to call if a recipient isn’t answering. I know who’s allergic to celery and who just doesn’t like it. I know which service users are usually up for a chat and which ones prefer to take the meal and go back indoors.
The pandemic isn’t the threat to our health it once was but the Made In Hackney service is as needed as ever. While it was borne out of the COVID era, the soaring cost of living has cemented the need for it in our area. Energy costs, Brexit surcharges and interest rate hikes are making life difficult across the board. Without no signs of government intervention on the cards, if anything it seems like the voluntary sector will grow and grow.
The past few years have seen the world become an increasingly cynical place but we shouldn’t let accusations of “virtue signalling” put us off doing more. If I’d known how much I’d actually enjoy the work of Made in Hackney I’d have found my inner “Louise” a lot sooner.
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