REAL LIVES Full Bellies


Meet Jess McCarnun, otherwise known as ‘Wonder Woman’.


Jess is also described by those who know her as ‘a diamond’, ‘a whirlwind’ and ‘a force of nature’. Others think she is ‘stubborn’ – but even that description is positive.


Unite Community member Jess


demonstrates her stubbornness in the way she represents and cares for the most vulnerable people in the deeply conservative cathedral city of Salisbury.


A World Heritage Site, Salisbury is not somewhere you would expect to find the destitute. But Jess is forced to go into battle for the low-paid, the jobless, the chronically ill, the homeless and those people who are about to be thrown out of their homes.


They are people who have fallen through the increasingly threadbare welfare net. And their numbers are rising.


Jess, 37, steps in when the privately-owned companies that administer benefit sanctions have taken away desperately needed income.


Most of the people she helps have hit a brick wall. But the indefatigable Jess never takes No for an answer. Ever.


Jess is a full-time carer, campaigner and advocate. Her attempts to find full-time employment have failed because she suffers from five serious conditions which cause considerable pain, sporadic but overwhelming fatigue and an inability to eat solid food.


That did not stop the infamous government-appointed company Atos declaring in 2012 that she wasn’t ill enough for sickness benefits.


“I walked away,” says Jess, “and never applied again in total disgust, I knew the truth, as did my specialists. I fight for other people’s cases instead and keep winning.”


Separated from her husband, Jess has two daughters suffering from autism and a son with both autism and PVL, which is similar to cerebral palsy.


But none of this stopped her from setting up the Full Bellies Project, which provided meals and good cheer for the homeless and destitute over Christmas and will start a regular food bank this March.


“It was so much fun at times over Christmas,” says Jess. “But at other times there were tears because we didn’t have a magic wand to fix the pain and suffering.”


Her clients are amazed by her ability to deal with her illnesses, look after her family and then take on the might of officialdom on their behalf.


Kelly Parker, 38, has been helped by Jess and now she is a volunteer. “I was being interviewed by my housing manager about rent arrears when Jess intervened and pointed out I was entitled to benefit. They said I owed £1,000 but it was thrown out of court. It was a hell of a weight off my mind.


‘Like an angel’ “They were going to throw me out of my council house and I’ve got my two children living with me. One is 19 and one 14. She is amazing. There is so much going on in her own life, but she never moans. She is like an angel. It makes me cry sometimes.”


Unite Community member Kelly is currently helping a wheelchair-bound homeless man who, like a number of other people, lives in a car park under Sainsbury’s. “He has to use a catheter bag and he’s been living on the streets for four months,” she says.


On one occasion she was forced to intervene when a young man, high on drugs, pushed him over. She sustained a broken arm for her act of courage.


Another client Jerry Chard, 52, once tried to take his own life. A former carpenter, he suffers from serious lung conditions including chronic bronchitis and emphysema.


“I had nowhere to live and I contacted Jess and she fought to get me somewhere. Now I live in a lovely little flat and I’ve even got my 14-year-old


20 uniteWORKS Spring 2017


daughter living with me. I’m about to move somewhere bigger. Jess worked tirelessly for me. She is a diamond, an amazing woman. When she goes into fight for you, she’s like a dog with a bone.”


Fifty one-year-old grandmother Jenny Bolwell started as a volunteer, but became a client. Last year she was declared fit for work by a tribunal and was in danger of losing her benefits. Jenny, a former teaching


assistant, suffers from


osteoporosis in both knees and can only walk with the aid of a crutch.


“Jess intervened and as a consequence they have given me two years’ grace. She was a force of nature.”


But Jess’s dedication takes its toll. “I work myself into the ground,” says Jess. “Then I crash, then I get up again. I take each day as it comes. The way I view life is, I get one shot and no matter what, it will be a good one.”


Jess has to deal with a system which often means that people can’t access help from a charity unless they have been referred by an official agency. Jess’s door however is always open.


She was once homeless herself. “I ran away from home when I was 15 years old. If it wasn’t for homeless people I wouldn’t be here now. They encouraged me to go back home.”


Jess has few qualifications. “Not even a GCSE in Maths or English.” She has a counselling qualification, but didn’t pursue the profession because “I would have taken people’s problems home with me”.


As part of her soup kitchen project due to start in March, Jess and her helpers will be cooking the meals in the kitchen of the George and Dragon, a pub near the city centre.


Nick Lamb, one of three licensees and a trained chef, has generously allowed the food bank to use his kitchen during the mornings. “A lot of my friends have been homeless,” said the 32-year-old.


“One was even reduced to eating dog food, so I know what people go through.”


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