Lidl London Old Kent Rd

- Education/training - Children/young people - Provides services Based in Peckham, South East London, we are an after-school music training hub. Salem was established in 2004 to make instrument music training accessible and affordable to young people (YP), especially but not exclusively, to those from disadvantaged, underprivileged, and underrepresented. We also provide a haven for YP to interact, socialise, discuss different social topics, and have a healthy meal. We give planned mental health training with professional practitioners. Classical, Jazz, and Praise music are purposely chosen as our repertoire, as they are particularly effective in lowering stress and anxiety levels in YP. As YP play and listen to these genres of music over the years, it helps them become more focussed and therefore more productive. Through our regular ABRSM exams, we help our learners build points towards entrance into grammar and boarding schools. Our intermediate and higher grades exams help build UCAS points towards university placements. Over 97% of our learners end up going to university. Some of our past learners have played with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Chineke Orchestra. Some have studied music at universities and now have full-time careers in music. We start our trainees from as young as seven years old and many stay with us until they leave for university. Some return after university to either help out voluntarily, or continue their own personal development. We collect surplus food donations from various outlets. Some are cooked on-site and given as meals to our pupils/learners, parents, teachers, volunteers, and the local community. Others are taken home by the same groups of people. Volunteers do all our food collections, cooking, feeding, and distribution. We do not charge for food consumed on the premises or taken away. No foods are resold.

We opened Evelyn Community Store in Deptford on 26th February 2019. We are in one of the most deprived London boroughs and our aim is to reduce food poverty and the stigma attached to it. The community store offers an alternative to a food bank and ensures members have food each week. It’s run by local volunteers in partnership with Lewisham Homes and FareShare which consists of chilled, frozen, fresh and ambient stock. Members visit the store once a week, pay £3.50 and receive a range of groceries, provided by Fareshare, but we also understand that their is a greater need in the fight to combat food poverty, so any surplus food we are able to obtain is given out free. To be a member of the store you have to either be a family/person or couple on a very low income, or be in receipt of benefits and struggling to pay your bills. We have 85 members and already have a waiting list. The project has made us realise how difficult it is for people on a low income to ensure they are eating at least one meal every day. Whilst our aim is to provide food for our members we have become increasingly aware of how isolated many of our families are. It is almost the festive period and we are hoping to pair up with a store local to us so that we can ensure as many families as possible have food over the Christmas period for a least a few days if not more. It will mean so much to our members to be able to take food home and know that they can eat well and will let members know that they are not forgotten about during the festive period and hard times. Our members consist of young single parents, young couples single people all ranging in ages, as well as the elderly and people who are disabled. Also if there is any chilled foods we can transport them safely in the chill boxes we have.we are currently feeding over 500 mouths a week, and the need is growing week by week. It has had a massive impact on what we do as and how much we give out.

Downham Aid is a community Volunteering organisations formed by residents to help those most vulnerable members of Bromley and Lewisham Communities to access support and services. Having now supported over 3500 individuals with Emergency Food Boxes during the coronavirus outbreak while also providing a range of support services to combat loneliness and other mental health issues through creating be-friending networks on social media. Downham Aid are committed to continuing to support their residents throughout the community by designing a Social Supermarket to help reduce poverty and offer many other services. There is no charge for the food that we provide.