IN A Castlemilk hall, surrounded by people having a whale of time, Bridget Crossan and Cath Milligan were momentarily overwhelmed.
The two long-time friends and fellow activists had organised Cmilk’s Got Talent, a celebration of local singers, dancers and comedians which also doubled up as a “solidarity food drive” to help families struggling in the cost of living crisis.
“To look around and see people smiling, singing along to the songs, dancing and sharing food, with no barriers, no judgement, no questions asked – it was amazing,” recalls Bridget. “We saw our community again as it used to be.”
Castlemilk’s Souper-heroes, Bridget and Cath, won the prestigious Editor’s Award at this year’s Glasgow Community Champion Awards, after triumphing in the Health and Wellbeing category in the South heat.
The two women were gobsmacked when the surprise accolade was announced.
“We don’t do what we do to win awards or for recognition, certainly not, so to find out we had even been nominated was such a surprise,” says Bridget.
“To go on and win the Health and Wellbeing heat, and now this special award – it is honestly amazing. I guess we don't realise the impact we are having, so this really does affirm what we do. It pushes us forward.”
Collecting the award from event host Michelle McManus, Cath said: “It’s not just us, lots of people have helped. We all need to stick up for each other because people are really struggling and no-one else is going to do it for us.”
Bridget, who runs Castlemilk Cooks Up Memories, and Cath, who stood for Castlemilk Against Austerity in the Glasgow council elections, are well-known in their community.
A conversation about how much the pandemic and cost of living crisis had affected local people grew into plans for a special event.
“We were talking about what we wanted for our community, and we realised that so many people, including ourselves, were feeling beaten down by the ever-rising costs of food, energy and living, after hardly having a chance to recover from the pandemic,” says Bridget.
“As much as we wanted to help share out food and resources, it was also very important to us to give people an event to come along to, where they could forget their worries for a while.”
She adds: “We organised a free concert, CMilk’s Got Talent, and it was fantastic. There was a great feeling of equality in the hall that evening, there was no deserving or undeserving, no judgements, everyone had the best time and went home with bags of shopping and soup packs.”
The event was a huge success, and spurred Bridget and Cath into following up with weekly community sessions delivering fresh soup packs, crusty bread and fresh fruit.
“But we kept getting stopped in the street by people asking for another event,” grins Bridget. “So we organised a summer festival and it was brilliant. More than 700 people turned up.”
There have now been six events, including a recent Curry Karaoke fundraiser, and they are planning a Winter Festival on December 21.
“We know so many people are experiencing hardship still, it’s really difficult,” says Bridget. “Hopefully, these events are bringing a bit of joy and happiness back for a while. We just want people to know they are not alone in this fight.”
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