Hear from Denise, one of our brilliant fruit & veg traders at Brixton Market:
“We joined the Rose Vouchers Project right at the start, about six years ago, as we wanted to support other parents. It’s a fantastic scheme, just brilliant, and to be honest, we’d be gutted if it had to finish.
We get to know the families and children with the Rose Vouchers. We like sharing knowledge about different fruit and veg with them. It’s brilliant to see the children being able to pick their fruit and veg, so they have what they want.
I want the kids to get involved with the shopping and coming to the market. It teaches the children how to buy fruit at the market and the next generation how to shop locally.
The parents with the Rose Vouchers tell other parents about it, and more families join. We’ve watched many children grow up. I see some of the same children at the school my son goes to, and they say ‘Hi, Mrs Fruit Lady’ – it’s nice; we’re a community.
The project has most definitely had a positive impact on our business. We had to shut down for a few weeks during the lockdown, but our main concern was that we needed to return so families could spend their vouchers and get the fruit and veg they needed. We had to support the children.
We’ve changed the layout of the stall to help with social distancing, we’re lucky where we are as the stall is in a corner, and we’ve set up a system to separate customers to keep everyone safe.
The Rose Vouchers Project works really for us. It’s a brilliant project. There are no words other than, ‘It’s fantastic. It’s a shame it can’t be in all boroughs. People want to support local families.”