Lidl Stratford

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/

Although we started in London, we have been offering Counselling in Croydon since 2015 and currently based in Croydon. We will now like to support our community more by supporting with practical advice and tools like food via weekly wellbeing support groups / workshops to the Croydon Community. In Croydon 1 in 6 adults (67,000 people) has a mental health condition at any one time, this is costly to the wards, borough and wider society and 1 in 4 young people are struggling with emotional trauma and mental health problems. We will like to support local familes, schools, young people and their parents / main carer to be more resilient, motivated, and empowered to make right decisions and have positive outlook on their future. During this pandemic of Covid19, there is a massive fear of shortage of food, affecting the community and families we offer emotional health support to. We are still offering Psychotherapy / Counselling support by offering email counselling, telephone counselling and face to face via Zoom. We will like to still support families emotionally and practically by supporting with food.

Since 2010 our Storehouse food bank has served over 50,000 free meals to local people in Hackney needing food support. This includes the homeless, working people on low income, the unemployed, people with disabilities and long-term health conditions (including mental health, autistic spectrum, learning disabilities) families, refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, veterens, ex-prisoners, older people, the marginalised , lonely isolated, and struggling with substance misuse. The food we provide comes through donations from three Tesco stores, Sainsbury’s, Lidl, Aldi and cooked food from three local Caribbean restaurants. There are three main volunteering roles 1: Kitchen: Volunteers will be packing the cooked food from the Caribbean restaurants (curry goat, jerk chicken, rice and peas etc) into individual takeaway containers. There will also be general cleaning and washing up. 2: Food and clothing bank: Volunteers will be setting up tables in the hall to display ambient and fresh food donations which range from milk, tinned food, fruit and Vegetables, cereals, the Caribbean food, toiletries etc, and clothing Your role would also involve portioning and repackaging food into food bags and serving our service users. There are also food parcels to be put together and delivered to older people on foot who live nearby. Volunteers may also prepare and serve refreshments (hot and cold drinks, biscuits and cakes). There will also be general cleaning and moving tables so that the hall is ready for other groups to use. Kitchen and Food Bank Volunteers will need to arrive for 10.30am and stay until 12.30pm Sundays only. 3: Volunteer Drivers: needed for pick up slots between 08.00 to 11:00 on Sundays to collect food donations from different supermarket stores and Caribbean restaurants located in Hackney and Bethnal Green. We will provide verification for drivers to show staff when making food collections. Volunteers will have access to go in the stores to collect the food even when the stores are closed to the public. The volunteer drivers will know by Saturday evening where they will be going to collect the food for the Sunday morning. Once the food is collected it will then be brought to the hall to be sorted and the driver stay to give out the food to our service users. Storehouse welcomes corporate and other groups wishing to volunteer as a one-off or on a regular basis. Storehouse also offers volunteering opportunities to young people aged 14-24 including those completing the Duke of Edinburgh Award. This volunteering role requires a good command of English. The benefits of volunteering are that you will enhance your sense of self-worth. It can also be added to your CV to improve your employment prospects. After 3 months of continuous volunteering Storehouse can provide references for you. Volunteers are welcome to refreshments while they are volunteering and can access food/clothing bank items at the discretion of the management.