Lidl Stowmarket

Ipswich Family Bank 🌈 is a volunteer-led community project based at The Meeting Place Community Centre in Ipswich. We support local families facing hardship by providing food, essential household items, and children’s toys throughout the year. Our mission is to bring relief, dignity, and hope to families in crisis, especially those affected by poverty, low income, or unexpected life challenges. We work to ensure that no family in our community has to go without the essentials. 🌈 How we help Distributing weekly food parcels, clothes,hygiene items and household essentials to families in need. Providing children’s toys, clothing, and essentials. Organising seasonal drives (Christmas, Easter, Back to School) to support local children 🙏 What we need We are seeking ongoing community support through: Surplus or end-of-line food and essentials Children’s toys and household goods Toiletries, cleaning products, and baby supplies Occasional festive or seasonal donations Every contribution — big or small — helps a family in need and strengthens our community.

Manna Pop Up Shop is open on alternate Monday evenings from 6-7.15pm. Customers (there are no criteria for entry) who can afford to, make a donation of £3 (cash or card) to fill a bag with food from 23 large tables of food (ambient, fresh and frozen, bread, fruit and vegetables) toiletries, household cleaning products and 6 large rails of clothing. Tea, coffee, homemade sausage rolls and cakes are provided for no charge. We have an average of 98 customers every time we open. In the last two years we have had more than 5200 customers. In 2024 we helped more than 300 different families from our community that included more than 700 adults and children, Manna is run in Christ Church, Felixstowe charity number 633496. The Compass Charity ( charity number 1195270) uses the upstairs of the church building. I am one of the three trustees. People that attend Manna can be referred to The Compass and vice versa. The Compass supports people with debt management, CV writing, benefit applications, job applications, attending appointments, fuel and food vouchers. Agencies within the town such as the job centre, social services, CAB, social care, schools, churches and other voluntary agencies refer people to Manna and The Compass. Paid workers and volunteers from The Compass attend each Manna to talk to customers. Through successful grant applications and some generous gifts Manna was able to buy a 40’ high cube shipping container placed in the church car park to provide storage for Manna. We have two large freezers and two upright refrigerators and some racking. The container is insulated, lined and meets electrical insulation, fire and carbon monoxide regulations. Manna was awarded 5 stars in a food safety inspection by Suffolk County Council in February 2023 Manna has no paid staff, but has more than 40 volunteers. Manna does not have a website, Facebook presence or X account. We collect food from M Morrisons which is just 100m away from the church building, the local bread shop and 7 supermarkets through FareShare Go/Foodiverse and Neighbourly.

The surplus food that we collect each week, is displayed outside the Café on the Rec for passers by to help themselves. There are no restrictions on who can take the food.