Lidl Durham Pity Me

I am a support worker for Changing Lives and we house 51 males who are homeless, have money issues, substance misuse issues, and housing issues. We support these men daily and our aim is to move them on in to their own property. We believe that everyone deserves a safe home, a rewarding job and a life free from addiction or abuse. We also believe that, given the right support, anyone can change their life for the better. By focusing on someone’s strengths, potential and opportunities, we help around 14,000 people overcome their problems and live safe, successful, independent lives each year.

We are a group of friendly volunteers in Great Lumley that provide food hampers to local residents to get them through a few days if they are struggling to make ends meet, isolating or in need of help. We also have a Community Table and Community Fridge where local people can pop in and take donations from local shops and businesses that would otherwise go to landfill. Everything we do is free of charge or on a pay-as-you-feel basis. Any donations we do receive are used to buy stock items for our hampers. We run out of Great Lumley Methodist Church alongside Heaven's Kitchen which provides a lunch project where we provide home-cooked, three course lunches each Tuesday - also on a pay-as-you-feel basis. During the recent lockdown we provided over 9000 meals to the elderly and vulnerable in the community. We are always happy to receive donations of any kind and will ensure that it is distributed to help our community.

In the North East alone over 800,000 tonnes of food waste is generated every year. That’s over a third of food produced for us to eat. We think that’s rubbish and we hope you agree. We use our cafe as a platform for campaigning and educating people about food waste. All members of the community are welcome and we get up to 600 people through our Cafe per week. We don’t see this food as ‘waste’, we see beautiful and valuable food, and we see the energy, time, fuel, water and other resources that have gone into making it, packaging it and getting it to our supermarket shelves. Join us in giving it value and stopping this waste of resources.