M&S Lymington

New Forest Aquaponics cic regenerative culture hub. We aim to help the understanding of connections with all parts of modern life, and our biosphere. At our core is Aquaponics - the farming of fish and edible plants, as well as growing all types of food. To grow food we need good soil, and good people working together. Good people need food, somewhere to meet and grow the food, and to feel valued. We aim to set up a community owned farm in the New Forest. . We are keen to hear from anyone who could help us provide this resource for the Waterside area of the New Forest. I Some of our active projects, please let us know if you would like to get involved - help is always appreciated The Waterside Food Project - Feed people, Feed animals, compost. We firmly believe that no one should ever go hungry, no food should ever be wasted, and no food should ever go to landfill or incineration. We work with smaller groups across the Waterside, providing resources to make sure they can get access to supermarket excess food, by collecting the food and recognising who can make best use of what's been collected. The groups we work with provide support for low income families and provide emergency food parcels, or cook for the homeless. Food that cannot be eaten, but can feed animals, goes to animal groups, and anything that is left after the people and animals are fed is composted, the compost will be used to help teach food growing. Ecobricks UK - Teaches communities all about plastic, how and why we are in such a mess with it, providing methods of tracking plastic transition and how we can measure our positive impacts on our biosphere. This is done via workshops, online and in person. Support is offered as to how the ecobricks can be used to bring benefit to the community whilst sequestering the plastic out of the biosphere. Waterside Clothes Swaps - We all need clothing, and with the cost of living increasing buying clothes, even from charity shops ,can be out of reach for some. Combine that with the damage the textile industry is doing to our world, helping with both issues is super important, we do this via waterside clothes swaps. We are in need of support - could you donate towards our hall hire costs, or donate clothes rails or even clothes? The Virtually Real Forest - our project to create deep connections between children and trees. Again working with Blackwell Bushcraft we run workshops on trees and their importance to our biosphere. Each child is able to take a tree home to grow in a pot becoming a guardian of that tree. The tree is registered with The Virtually Real Forest, its journey can be followed, and support in caring for the tree can be given to the guardian of the tree. The aim of the scheme is to create more understanding of trees, and how they grow. More details are on the blog section of our website. We are looking for funding to provide the workshops to community groups and schools.

Officially launched in November 2020, The Food Rescue was born out of a concern at the amount of food that is being 'wasted' by the supermarkets when there are people struggling to make ends meet. The aim of this group is to rescue 'surplus waste' food from supermarkets and redistribute and/or turn into meals for people struggling to put food on the table - together with showing how to cook basic meals with the ingredients they have available to them. Since its inception The Food Rescue Kitchen has evolved from its humble beginnings of collecting surplus food from a small number of supermarkets and then inviting local families to pick up rescued fruit, vegetables and bread from one of our pop-ups to what it has become today . The majority of the food collected 7 days a week from 7 local supermarkets is now donated to The New Forest Basics Bank in Lymington to go out into their food parcels adding fresh fruit, vegetables and bread to their standard food parcels. The rest is distributed to local families supported by The Food Rescue Kitchen itself, together with producing banana cakes (currently just under 15,000 baked to date!), soups and ready meals which again are donated to The New Forest Basics Bank to add a home cooked meals to their food parcels. From January 2025 when a dedicated space for a food production kitchen was acquired - The Food Rescue Kitchen will evolve again into a bigger food production outlet, producing more ready meals, soups, cake and bakes for the comminuty - launch date TBA. I was awarded Citizen of Brockenhurst 2020 for my work within the community. I was also recently interviewed by BBC Radio Solent to talk about my work within the community. In February 2026 I was given a Community Hero Award by Scrivens Opticians. Follow on Facebook page @thefoodrescuekitchen-feedtheneed Twitter - @Rescuekitchen Instagram - the_food_rescue_kitchen Linkedin - Jane Overall to keep up to date with my journey together with photos, media stories, recipes and tips

New Forest Mencap are running Life Skills Workshops for adults with learning disabilities in order to promote independence and increase self-fulfilment. We are starting up weekly cooking workshops known as 'The Balanced Plate' and we are looking for local food donations for our ingredients box. Please get in touch if you are interested in getting involved to increase equality in the kitchen and beyond.