M&S Nantwich

- Education/training - Disability - The prevention or relief of poverty - Environment/conservation/heritage - Economic/community development/employment - Children/young people - Elderly/old people - People with disabilities - The general public/mankind - Provides buildings/facilities/open space - Provides services - Provides advocacy/advice/information - Other charitable activities

The Very Green Grocery is a project managed by the charity Changing Lives Together (CLT) in Cheshire, focused on making a difference in the lives of local people and having an impact on the wider environment Our organisation empowers and uplifts people in crisis through the following key services: ·       Help Scheme: Providing furniture, beds, and white goods to families in need. ·       Food Distribution Service: Delivering food to local food groups for those struggling to afford essential grocery items. ·       Community Groceries: Offering affordable essentials, warm spaces, and a supportive network to individuals facing food poverty. ·       Community Cafés: Serving a variety of food at exceptionally low prices, in warm spaces, for individuals and families with low income. We are squarely centered on empowering people - helping them regain confidence, learn valuable skills, and regain control of their lives. Our vision is to energise individuals to succeed. Through our volunteering, work experience, and training schemes, we offer personalised support that builds confidence and self-esteem. Our community is diverse, and we reach out to anyone needing help - from young people, individuals with disabilities, and unemployed or unskilled persons, to ex-offenders, or those recovering from mental health episodes. In essence, CLT aids those who need assistance to get back on track. We work extensively across Cheshire in areas ranked in the top 10% most deprived areas in England where data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), shows that 19.1% of households – almost one in five - qualify as deprived and live in food poverty. One of our newest additions is a café at our Winsford Hub. Operating in a high-deprivation area, we aim to improve holistic health for our staff, volunteers, and customers. An integral part of the café is in providing our volunteers with a free nutritious meal, providing them sustenance among the socio-economic barriers they face. The café functions under the guidance of a paid staff member who imparts the volunteers' knowledge not just about food preparation, but also customer service and cash handling practices, health, safety, food hygiene, and budgeting. We have expanded our services to take orders from local workplaces and look forward to receiving more food donations that we can utilise to serve wholesome meals. Join us as we continue to foster a resilient community, empowering individuals, and reducing waste through your kind food donations.

We are Chance We are a charity powered by volunteers, battling homelessness and poverty, with hope, help and a hot meal. We are changing lives, one difficult step at a time. We are coming together as a community, to give disadvantaged people a fighting chance. What started in December 2017 as a small project to help people experiencing homelessness in Crewe, has become a registered charity that provides practical support at our community pantry and kitchen, a place of contact for endless advice and hope. Our name really does say it all. We provide a Chance. Chance Changing Lives was formed in 2017 from humble beginnings. A few individuals came together to try and do something positive to help the homeless in Crewe. As with most start up charities, good will, community spirit and selfless volunteering started a journey based on offering an outlet to provide a warm meal to street sleepers and the homeless. Since 2018 we have experienced the impact of the economic shock waves of Brexit, Covid and the war in Ukraine. These have had far reaching implications, pushing more and more families into serious financial poverty and hardship. To provide additional support to families and households we opened the doors to our Community Pantry (social supermarket) in 2018. We provide a unique and bespoke service to our community in excess of basic food provision. We have created a foundation for families in need by which we can enable and support them in their corrective or preventive financial actions plans via the provision of sustainable and cheap household shopping. In return for our service, households are able to reduce their food budget, refocussing these saved funds to service their debts and arrears which ultimately supports their journey to financial recovery. For some households this is a short-term need, but we also work with many more on a much longer-term basis, if the need is more complex. We support households who may be suffering poor mental health, households with addiction challenges, families experiencing breakdowns, families subject to abusive and coercive relationship. Households where a family bereavement, a job loss, or a critical illness has pulled away the financial security of stable employment. Our portfolio of service users and their situation is as broad as it is deep, and for each family their situation is unique to them. We work heavily in the community and rely on the significant support of Cheshire East and Crew Town councils. We have extensive relationships with national funding from the National Lottery Community Fund and are support extensively through local business including Bently, NWF, AOl, Bakkavor and a variety of smaller businesses. We also rely extensively on the food donations that we take from several local stores. These donations primarily support the activities at our community pantry, allowing our service users access to fresh fruit and vegetables, and other fresh and chilled foods which w