A different kind of modelling

I recently got involved with an 'Alternative Fashion Show' to celebrate 50 years of punk. It was also to raise funds for the Wycombe Food Hub and to highlight the importance of recycling, re-using, repairing and upcycling. 

The Hub is a fantastic thing. Volunteers visit all of the local supermarkets in and around High Wycombe every evening to collect residual food - by this I mean food they will no longer put on sale. This could be because of damaged packaging or because the product is nearing its sell-by date or because it's old stock and new stock is incoming. Sometimes it's due to over-ordering - just after Christmas recently, the stores handed over a staggering 300+ unsold frozen turkeys to the Food Hub.

The volunteers also visit local food outlets and restaurants, farms and farm shops. All of this residual food is then brought back to the Hub, checked, and then put out for sale at vastly reduced prices. 

This is not a food bank. Food banks are for the desperately poor in society and you have to be referred via the local authority. The Food Hub is different because anyone can shop there. Its primary purpose is to prevent food waste. However, there are plenty of working people who, with the rising cost of living, are finding things tough. A visit to the Hub can save them quite a few quid as all they charge is £3 to fill a handbasket. It means that people can retain their dignity without having to ask for handouts. That said, if people have no money at all - such as the homeless - the Hub will give food for free. And none of this costs the taxpayer a single penny. 

The Hub also supports local homeless charities, and any food that goes past its use-by date is donated to farms as animal feed. Incredibly, the Hub currently prevents five tons of perfectly good food going to landfill every month. Isn't that staggering?  

But it does have costs - petrol for the collection vans, heating, lighting, electricity and the rental of the shop space. So it has to raise funds somehow. This fashion show was one such fundraiser.

The event was tremendous fun and designer Juliet Hamilton - who previously made stage costumes for the likes of Cyndi Lauper and Human League, amongst many others -  did some extraordinary things with thrown away or donated clothes. Local people volunteered as models and I made a few props and MC'd the evening. 

An extremely worthwhile event and an important message in difficult times.