A VILLAGE pub has kept on feeding the community despite being shut during the Covid-19 crisis with homecooked freezer meals left for people to collect in the village church.

Landlord Gary Hitching of The Drewe Arms in Drewsteignton has provided the service using a £500 grant from Devon County Council’s Prompt Action Fund, which he used to buy ingredients and packaging to make and freeze homemade meals. He then set up a freezer and mini-foodbank at the entrance to the parish church as a collection point where people could help themselves.

After promoting the service on local community Facebook sites, he was preparing 20 meals every three or four days during the first month of lockdown.

Gary said: ‘We put the freezer in the church entrance before lockdown because people were panic-buying and this was a way to make food available for anybody who might need it or didn’t want to go to any shops.

‘We know every single person in this village so we know who’s likely to get on a bus and go into town to shop but we also knew some people that weren’t able to get out as soon as we were locked down.

‘The food wasn’t just for the elderly. We had a nurse using it for the first two or three weeks of lockdown. There were people who had lost their jobs or weren’t furloughed straight away. They all benefited.’

Other people have been adding to the food available in the church porch, and everyone who visits is asked to observe good hand hygiene by wiping their hands when they go in and out.

Gary added: ‘The funding was very welcome, it really helped — however, while the grant came to me, it was used to benefit the whole district because everything was bought locally. I was able to buy meat from Michael Howard Butchers in Moretonhampstead, veg from Dart Fresh in Exeter and milk from Dunn’s Dairy [in Drewsteignton].

‘As well as picking up the food they want, people have also been communicating through notes left for each other. In a way it’s replaced meeting at the pub but we have still had a community associated with the pub through open mic nights on Facebook.’

While the pub has been closed, Gary has been giving the pub a facelift as well as working as chef at a local care home. He’s also delivering food to a couple in their 90s in Drewsteignton who are shielding.

Although the frozen meals scheme has now finished as the church prepares to reopen, Gary is proud that the scheme was so well received. ‘I wasn’t surprised at how well supported it’s been. Dartmoor is a very close community so there would always be something like this. Drewsteignton is an amazing place, we all help each other.’