People in Sefton are coming together to fight deprivation following huge Tory cuts to the council's funding.
Voluntary groups, council partners and local residents are working together to look out for one another.
A Welfare Reform and Anti-Poverty (WRAP) group has been set up, and was discussed at an overview and scrutiny meeting at Bootle Town Hall last night.
Last year, the group ran a project to provide winter coats - and there was no criteria for receiving the coats, so they were available to all who asked for one.
Other programmes have included the summer holidays food scheme, for families whose children who receive free school meals, and the provision of clothing and food parcels.
Speaking at last night's meeting, Cllr Mhairi Doyle - who worked for the DWP for 25 years before ' refusing to be complicit in how the Tories treat vulnerable people' - said most of her work as a councillor is dealing with people who are struggling to live, and struggling to get the help they need.
Cllr Doyle said: "I spend more time at the job centre now than I ever did when I worked there. So many people are struggling, and being excluded from benefits.
"Not everyone has a computer and have you ever tried to fill in one of those forms on a mobile phone? Physically impossible.
" The system is designed to shut people out."
Linacre ward - the constituency made up of Bootle centre, the New Strand shopping centre and Gladstone Dock - is one of the most-deprived in the UK.
At the 2019 WRAP conference, which took place in March, one Linacre resident told the ECHO : "We've been left to rot. The government doesn't care what happens to us. But they won't keep us down.
"People [who live] around here care about each other and will always help.
"Especially the ones who don't have much themselves but will always still offer what they can."
Following the event, WRAP partners and the local authority will now focus on seven key priorities to develop:
- Period poverty
Coats and uniform bank
Friendship
Funeral poverty
Food poverty
Debt advice
Fuel poverty
The school uniform bank continues to run year-round, with both old and new clothing items accepted at Sefton run libraries and town halls.
A surplus of coats from last year's coat project has been distributed among the borough's food banks.
The council also offers an Emergency Limited Assistance Scheme (ELAS) available to support local residents who are experiencing severe hardship, a disaster or emergency.
Anybody needing urgent help with the costs of food, winter coats, gas, electricity or emergency travel, and who does not have the money to get them, may be able to get assistance from the local authority.
South Sefton food bank is one of many services that work together in partnership to help Sefton's most vulnerable.
Debbie Shelley, manager of the food bank in Waterloo , said she expects there to be more demand for food this year than ever before.
