Rose of Northamptonshire: Organiser of food waste project to feed vulnerable people in countryside honoured

The organiser of a project to feed vulnerable people across South Northamptonshire during the coronavirus pandemic has been given an award.

Miranda Wixon has received the Rose of Northamptonshire Award for her dedication to the Community Larder project since March last year.

She has organised hundreds of volunteers to pack unwanted food from supermarkets into tens of thousands of parcels for anyone who needed it in villages around the district.

The award has been created by the Lord Lieutenant, the High Sheriff and Northamptonshire County Council to celebrate those who have supported their community during the pandemic.

Miranda said: "It's lovely because it marks what people have done totally spontaneously.

"There's never been a time in my life when people have so readily come together for the support of their fellow man.

"That's been an amazing movement to be part of and thank you to the team from Northamptonshire for doing it."

Before the pandemic, Miranda was working with the council to introduce community larders and volunteering for SOFEA, an Oxfordshire-based charity distributing food waste from supermarkets.

Within a week of the first lockdown starting, the Queen's nurse had brought the plan forward to start providing for people who are shielding or cannot get to a shop for whatever reason.

More and more villages and volunteers got onboard to help the project reach more people in need, which kept going into the summer and the third lockdown at the moment.

At Christmas, Miranda and her team worked tirelessly with other charities to ensure as many people as possible had a home-cooked meal with day centres closed.

"I'm never afraid of a challenge - I'm like a snowball rolling down a hill, I started small but people kept adding bits to it and it just keeps growing," she said.

"My mission is to look at what's there and ask how we can help but it's become much more powerful now."

Miranda said she was surprised when she received the award letter last week but joked that her mother was annoyed there would not be a ceremony and she would not get to wear a hat.

She added that her parents are proud of her after working in public service for their whole lives and paid tribute to everyone who has helped her.

"The challenge going forward is how do we capture the good and support the generosity," she said.

"Life has changed forever, we know that, so it's now about how we reemerge from that and in Northamptonshire, we have a good opportunity to do that."