M&S Milton Keynes

Looprun is a response division and part of an independent social enterprise. This is more than food and is part of a supportive services platform to help people get sustained in their own individual way. With up to 94% success rate and seeing once those receiving free Looprun response bags to returning to stores as shoppers with baskets full. These are the impact stories created when all come together to do good for good. Service users are signposted to Looprun mostly from referrals including professionals in social and healthcare. Looprun provides free non perishables, perishable food, toiletries, and brand new clothing to people facing a temporary challenge. Whatever supermarkets, stores, and retailers can do is turned into a grateful donation to a neighbour in need. This is a response to real people in real-time. No food is banked providing a direct in and out service. We believe if the food is stored then a person in need is not getting any food, hence we provide an instant response and instant impact service. Looprun has access to professional volunteers who carry out a confidential support service to people in need. From homeless shelters, hostels, sheltered housing, care homes, soup kitchens and schools. This is a non voucher, free and confidential service. This means Looprun can reach more people in need with food donations. Anyone that receives a Looprun bag of essential food items is sustained thus creating a loop cycle. All are invited to become part of these sustainable stories in your local community. For further information and gallery access on the impact of Looprun please visit: Website: https://www.looprun-sciv.online/

Sharing is Caring is a food service that serves students nationwide with the intention to expand internationally. The program’s focus is to identify area needs for food requirement amongst students first and utilise resources to satisfy those needs in order to eliminate hunger in our student community. We operate within the Welfare Office at our partnering universities so as to limit abuse of the service. Students are encouraged to volunteer in every aspect of the food service as voluntary work experience is highly recognised and preferred by many employers in varying sectors. It is deep sadness that we have identified a large community of students who do not eat on an average day to day basis simply because they cannot afford to. It is our intention to operate a warehouse facility at every university and college in the United Kingdom where we will store donated or rescued food for distribution to students. The program actively solicits food from retailers, wholesalers, and processors. In addition, we plan to collect food donations from restaurants for immediate distribution to service programs. It is estimated that the number of students who need services from us will increase during the next five years as the cost of living increases. Though there are a number of food banks available countrywide, there is that element of embarrassment that a student has to overcome to approach them. It is with this in mind that we are providing a more specific service solely for students. It is within our plan to have a smart phone application that allows students to indicate their need and desire for food. Sharing is Caring is therefore an important resource because we can respond quickly with the one of the most important resources these students need. Food! Our services help to improve the wellbeing and welfare of students and assist greatly in achieving goals that have been set. We know that our service is a small investment with regards to the influence hunger has on our health, however, it must be implemented as the cost of ignoring the problem regarding student hunger could possibly be detrimental in the long run especially in the face of rising university costs without added incentives. We all know that “hungry” should never be a pronoun for “student”, however; today sub-standardisation of this matter is a reality for some.

ln August 2007, ECE recieved a Certificate of Appreciation on behalf of 300,000 members of the IYF (International Youth Fellowship) for our contribution to the UK branch. In September 2008, Esther Community Enterprise was awarded certificates from the Lord Mayor of Croydon, for having carried out 100 hours of volunteering activities. On the 2 June 2011, ECE was awarded with theQueens Award for Voluntary Service, MBE. This is the highest award given to voluntary groups in the United Kingdom, and as such, is equivalent in status to the MBE. This prestigious UK National Honour recognises outstanding voluntary contributions and sets the national benchmark for excellence in volunteering, with the work of those awarded being judged to be of the highest standard. We aim to meet those who have needs in the local community by redistribution of food and other consumables donated from retailers. ECE makes a worthwhile collective response to the 3 tenets of sustainable development, namely social, economical and environmental needs. ECE forms a consortium with other charities, faith groups, projects and organisations. We have over 70 Project Co-ordinators. They manage and help to distribute the food/groceries and clothing items within the local communities across the UK, on behalf of ECE. We have sustained our social enterprise through the goodwill and hard work of over 400 drivers and countless volunteers, who contribute their time, transportation and finance to this worthy cause. Near sell by date food is collected on a daily basis from a range of supermarkets and other retailers and diverted to those that need it most ECE feeds in excess of 40,000 people per week and this is steadily on the increase as we expand across the UK