A week in the life of… a placemaking and partnerships manager

Tuesday

It is 3am. I’ve slept in the living room, wary of invoking the wrath of my wife by waking her up at this hour of the morning. By 3:30am, I am at Spitalfields market. There isn’t the usual bustle or activity that one would expect but these are not usual times. I am supposed to be meeting a local grocer who has volunteered to help me get produce – with the caveat that he cannot guarantee what we will find or its price. He has sourced a fantastic deal on strawberries at £1 a punnet.

But a frantic Google search and I realise I’m at the wrong market – I have 15 minutes to get across town and meet him by 4am. I make it… just.

He has worked the market for 40 years, and I soon discover he is a mini celebrity. I follow, dutifully inserting the card into the machine as instructed at each seller. Every time I am nervous… but it works and we are in Erith by 8am. By 8:45am, a fair few tonnes of produce are in The Exchange, ready to be sorted into individual orders.

Volunteers arrive by 9am. Phones are relatively silent. But soon enough, slow trickles of orders start to come in and we dispatch the volunteers to make the vital home deliveries.

Wednesday

My body aches from lugging sacks of potatoes yesterday – being a delivery man is not easy. I make a mental note to be extra nice to postal workers and every other delivery person that keeps e-commerce alive. By 9am, I am in the office. Some of the fresh produce will only last for about three days, so I decide to distribute 600 fliers and go door-to-door using our database to identify those most at risk, as well as working with other Orbit teams to tell me where we should be delivering to within our sheltered schemes.

My colleague Rosie holds the fort alongside Sarah from The Exchange, taking orders, dispatching volunteers and ensuring that we maintain our services.

By noon, I have managed to open a few accounts with suppliers and distributors in case we need to prep for another wave. It means we will not be starting from scratch.

I end the day running in and out of The Exchange, and visiting parts of Bexley I have never been to before.

Thursday

We are down to our last 40 bundles – although there are significant stocks of fruit left that cannot be individually bagged. I may have been overzealous on that front! But the truth is, I was in uncharted territory and nobody knew what to expect. At least it’s healthy and won’t go to waste.

In between the deliveries, I take the time to solidify the business plan and feedback on the Arts Council bid we have been working on. I also chase up one of our contractors to ask about technical terms for another project that we are hoping to work on with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

I trawl my way through the hundreds of emails and check on the other projects we run. How are their services affected? Will they need to make changes? Will the support of our most vulnerable continue? It is tough out there and we know that the risk is many businesses may not make it. Worse still is that the individuals they support will be left without. We change what we can, vary contracts where possible and pencil in future catch-ups.

Last deliveries go out the door by 3pm and we are officially out of packages. There is a fair bit of produce left, but I already have an idea about who that can be distributed to.

Friday

I continue the bad habit of checking my work email first thing when I wake up. It is only 7am but already a local councillor has emailed to let me know that one of our blocks has a garbage chute blocked. I forward the email to our wonderful estates leader and by 7:40am he has emailed back, photos included with the one word – “sorted”.

Later, I go to The Exchange and load up the car with what remains of the fruit and veg, which I have divided into seven bags. The plan is to leave these in the communal areas of our sheltered schemes for customers to help themselves to.

I finish up at the last scheme, only to realise I left my clipboard in the first one. And by the time I get there, I am pleasantly surprised to see all the fruit is gone. Feeling content, I head back to The Exchange. I thank all volunteers, the community that came out to show their support. It’s a great example of the positive impact we can have when people pull together.

Feeling tired, I am keen for the week to end; by 5pm, equal parts fatigue and equal parts pride kick in.

We take a final tally, to see if we made a difference. It seems we have: more than 3,000 hot meals, 700 emergency care packages and 180 fresh produce deliveries were distributed.

We can take pride in knowing that this week, Orbit, the community and the generosity of people made a real difference to those who needed it most, and our community thrived through one of its most testing times as a result.

One thing is guaranteed – I am going to sleep well tonight.

Do you know an outstanding professional who deserves to be featured? Email jess.mccabe@insidehousing.co.uk with your suggestions