SHEPPERTON LOCKDOWN DOORSTEPS
Leah Newbould meets Amy Andrews, to find out more about the wonderful idea of Shepperton Lockdown Doorteps.
Shepperton Lockdown Doorsteps started at the beginning of May when Kim called to see if I fancied helping her with an idea and if my husband Stephen would mind taking some pictures (Stephen is a professional photographer and head of photography at Esher college), Kim had heard of someone doing a similar project in a different town and we thought it could work well in Shepperton. We had all been thinking of what we could do to help the community during lockdown and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to raise some funds for 'Bags of Food' run by Jubilee church in Shepperton as they are the sole provider of food bank services to the TW17 postcode area.
The idea was simple, we take a photo of a household, on the doorstep of their home and in return for a digital copy of the photograph, the donate either financially, through our just giving page (which I will attach below), or with in date food/ toiletries to either the box in the porch of Jubilee church (week days only) or the trolley in Sainsbury's in Shepperton high street. After a week we decided to expand the project to include businesses and institutions which have stayed open to serve the community during lockdown such as high street shops and schools, which was a lovely and popular addition to the project.
We have a dedicated facebook group where, with permission, we put our photographs although we are working towards a book and exhibition at an appropriate time.
The response has blown us away, to date we have raised just under £3500 and photographed around 250 households, businesses and institutions.
We have 3 photographers, Stephen Andrews, Hetty Quirke and
Julia Nekhaenko who have volunteered to photograph for the project and have done such amazing work.