ALDI NEWPORT - SPYTTY RD

Our aim is to offer ongoing support through emergency food parcels, basic hygiene essentials and a range of mental and wellbeing support to families, vulnerable adults, schools and the general community struggling to stay afloat. As a grassroots community project we are primarily staffed by local volunteers of diverse groups across the town which makes our services completely free and open to anyone who needs this the extra help. We empower residents to offer their time as volunteers who come together to simply inspire, invigorate and entice others out of their homes to join in various activities, share a coffee through our forums, make new connections and take their minds off worrying - whether young or old, shy or socially awkward, new to the area, retired, divorced, feel restricted, lonely or isolated - our services pride in making our wider user network feel part of the wider community. Since July 2017, we have been able to support over 5k families and delivered well over 12k food parcels both within and beyond Harlow

Our grass roots, not for profit group has been set up entirely by volunteers living in the community we want to support, in response to the cost of living crisis and the post-Covid loneliness epidemic. We have big plans and have started with a Community Pantry. In the 4 weeks we have been operational, we have signed up 58 households in the neighbourhood and distributed close to 300kg of food, much of which would otherwise have gone to landfill. We have sourced the food from supermarket partners set up via Neighbourly. The project has been extremely well received by the community, but at the moment we are working from a temporary base while we arrange funding for more permanent premises, which we hope to set up on our local allotments site. Once we have our own space, we have ambitious plans for cook-a-longs, social gatherings for those isolated people in our community and pop-up sessions with other local support groups, energy providers, councillors and charities.

Help for All Gwent is a local voluntary group that accepts donations from the local community and donate to people in need. This includes essential items such as food, clothing and household items. We work closely with a local charity that donates furniture to families in need and help people in crisis with sourcing clothes and furniture. Families can register with Help For All Gwent to receive weekly or biweekly food parcels. The group is run by volunteers who collect food from Sainsbury’s and Aldi. The food is then distributed to families who can either collect or have delivered to them if they have no means of transport. We work closely with other local charities and community groups and cover each other's food collections if needed. Volunteers have completed basic food safety training to enable them to.distribute all food collected and understand the importance of food safety.