Two brothers bullied at school for "smelling" found refuge at the L6 Community Centre, which runs an after-school youth club and a free laundrette for people who can't afford washing machines.
Opened in 1999, the community centre on Queens Road in Everton, is on the frontline of the cost-of-living crisis, helping deprived communities hit hard by rising prices.
County ward councillor Gerard Woodhouse is the charity's chief executive. Between phone calls, staff asking questions, and sips from a Diet Coke can, he flips through pages lying on his desk.
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They're referrals - sent by a teacher, a counsellor, a housing group and a family support worker - for furniture, food and toys to be delivered that day.
Gerard said: "All the beds have gone out. We've got a few mattresses, but no beds left.
"Did I make the right decision giving those beds to those people when someone comes in tomorrow who's worse than today?
"You're always juggling your conscience - have you done the right thing?"
The L6 Centre has 11 employees on its payroll, all of them DBS checked, along with five people on jobseekers' work experience, and 32 volunteers.
Former support worker Mark Booth, 32, started working here several years ago.
He said: "I'm mostly a diver, which I love. You get your own bit of freedom. Best job I've ever had, but at the same time, it's the worst job I've ever done.
"It's 2022 and we've got to buy beds for people? It shouldn't be happening."
On Thursday morning, he delivered bread, butter and jam to Whitefield and Our Lady's & St Swithin primary schools, where teachers worry education will be the last thing on the minds of families struggling to feed their kids or heat their homes as basic living costs continue to rise.
The stops are brief before Mark has to pick up the referral papers on Gerard's desk for a series of house calls.
In one day he drove between the L6 Community Centre and as far north as in Croxteth and Sefton Park to deliver mattresses, cots, toys and food to households across the city.
Mark and Natasha, who started working there six weeks ago, gave a bed to a young mum whose child had none of their own.
The woman had no heating for three weeks over Christmas, but she was still reluctant to take anything for herself in case someone needs it more than her.
In the end, she agreed to take a bedsheet.
Across the city, a woman with five children, no toys, and few clothes, lives in a flat with barren bed frames. Natasha had to ask for her clothes sizes because she too asked for nothing for herself.
Her kids crowded around as Natasha placed bags of toys in a room.
The mum beckoned them to wave goodbye and say thanks as the L6 team left.
Natasha sat in the kitchen and cried when she came back from the delivery.
She said: "I wouldn't go and discuss that with other staff, but when they know you're going out to a family, people will go, 'Oh how was everything? How were the kids? Were they made up?'
"I burst out crying when I got asked that. I've never seen kids so thankful. They were like that was Christmas for them.
"Their mum is a loving, good mum, but I've never seen that situation."
She added: "I'll carry that with me now. I can remember every family that I've seen like that, but this one's now fresh again.
"And although you've given them something and you've helped them, they're not gone out your mind."
Hard as it is to forget the more harrowing encounters, there's little time to dwell on each family they support.
Even as they unpack the van outside one house, a neighbour stops to ask how they can get help from the community centre.
One person called Gerard that afternoon after spotting the phone number on the side of the van, which was donated by three insurance companies.
There is a seemingly never-ending list of people in need for the people at the centre.
Gerard and the L6 Community Centre plug gaps left by more than a decade of cuts and a growing cost of living, gaps he thinks should be filled by the local and national governments instead of charities.
He told the ECHO: "I hate the saying by professionals, 'That's not my job, I'm not here to do that'.
"Well, do you know what? If we all only did our job, nothing would get done. You've got to do that little extra.
"It's not my job to make sure someone goes to their mental health assessment, but if it means she's going to get there, yeah I'm going to do it.
"I've always done that as a councillor. If there's a bag of rubbish in the roads, why send an email to you, for you to send an email to there, to then put it on the system?
"Why not just pick the bag of rubbish up, put it in your boot, go down the road and put it in a bin? Because that's what I do."
Gerard has big ambitions for the L6 Centre, including the dream to have a purpose built building to house their clothes shop, games room, computer facilities, and the food union, where a £1 annual membership gets you 10 items for £5 when you shop there.
For now, he must settle for the caravan in Wales for families who might never have been on holiday before, and a monthly cabaret at On Point in the city centre to tackle loneliness in the LGBT+ community.
But the patchwork funding to do even that isn't guaranteed.
Two years of support from the Steve Morgan Foundation runs out this month, and four years of National Lottery funding ends at Christmas.
Rising fuel prices mean they've cut back on the number of trips they can do in the van, or in the minibus to Wales.
Driving from one end of the city to the other and back of gain in one day, you can see how those costs add up fast.
Looking at the future, everyone there agrees, the situation for people on and over the brink is just getting worse.
But Gerard holds out hope, said: "My reward is a woman or a man or a child coming through that door crying and going out skipping."
You can donate to the L6 Community Centre's GoFundMe here.
