B&Q Milton Keynes

We started in October 2015 feeding the homeless, rootless and in need on a Saturday. We now run a Social Supermarket on Tuesdays 12 - 2, a fresh fruit and vegetable food bank on Thursdays 12 - 2 all from surplus food from Supermarkets and Saturdays we serve hot food 5 - 6pm. We currently run 5 projects. Our first project is Dine With Us on The Streets - Cherries Legacy where we support between 80 to 100 people with hot hearty food, take away food such as tins, sandwiches, crisps, fruit, hot drinks, toiletries and clothes, every Saturday These are people who are either street homeless, in hostels, on means tested benefits or in other financial crisis. We have been running this project since October 2015 and we believe in treating people with respect and with dignity. Our second project is Dine With Us Community Larder, our Food Bank project ,launched in February 2019, giving access to vital nourishment for those suffering food poverty. The need for this is much greater than we anticipated and we now need more partners so we can ensure that we have enough food to meet the demand. We are also incurring significant costs operating the programme, with the yearly rent on the unit, running costs and other sundries. We have seen as many as 75 (seventy five) families come to collect food in a single day. Our third project sees us support 11 schools with more looking to come on board (which we cannot commit to yet as we do not have enough food). Fresh fruit and vegetables and protein play a pivotal part in our organisation, as is encouraging people to eat more healthily, regardless of their circumstances. Our fourth project is sending out care packages to the community, quite often through the schools as well and our fifth project is opening and running Bedfords first Social Supermarket which has been in operation since April 2020. This gives people access to affordable food and provides a fundraising vehicle for us, to help towards the other projects we run on a goodwill basis.

We run a larder , cafe and fridge every saturday for everyone that needs a little help.

The aims of the pre-school are to enhance the development and education of children under school age by encouraging parents to understand and provide for the needs of their children by: *offering appropriate play, education and care facilities, extended hours groups *instigating and adhering to and furthering the aims and objects of the pre-school learning alliance. Food surplus distribution. Any food surplus that is collected is not sold on a buy and sell website. All surplus food is donated to our local pre-school and community. If the volume of surplus is high some weeks, we may advertise on the local community Facebook page for people to come and help themselves, there is no charge for this. All chilled food is put into a fridge overnight. Our community and pre-school parents are able to collect the food donation between 9am and 9:30am the following day, it is all laid out on a table for collection. Any food left over after the half an hour time period is either put back into the fridge or disposed of.