ALDI ROMSEY

RCCG Place Of Grace in the course of advancing the propagation of the gospel and reducing poverty, make food, clothing and other daily essentials available to the homeless, orphans, widow, widowers, fatherless, motherless and the destitute in Eastleigh and her environs. Although, we are in Eastleigh, Hampshire, we cover areas such as Southampton, Botley, and Hedge-End etc. Our food bank & clothing project has tremendously assisted us to bring people together in a conducive atmosphere and provide food that can be eaten or taken away for those in question and their families. In addition, the essence of our project our is to provide the needed support and counselling by experienced caregivers who can signpost the homeless and destitute in our area to ensure they have roof over their heads. This will enable more people to benefit from the service and support families who are on tight budgets and are keen to provide healthy food options for their children.

We set up our food banks 28 yrs ago and our Marketplaces 4 years ago. We have 5 food, 1 clothing bank and 4 Marketplaces. The Banks provide emergency support to those in need. Our Marketplaces is a community food membership scheme for local people. Our Banks operate an online system referral agents can use to refer clients. There is a network of over 2000 individual agents able to refer to us now. In 2023we gave out 4 days of food 21,765 times and clothed 2,153 people with x4 outfits. We do all this free of charge through working co-operatively with supermarkets, charities, business and churches across the city to make it happen. SCM Marketplaces have been designed to complement our existing emergency food and clothes project. For a weekly £5 membership subscription, Marketplace members can come on the day their Marketplace is open, use the members café, chat to members and volunteers, talk to any visiting advice agencies, and choose around 13 items from the fridges, freezers, fresh fruit and veg, bakery, ambient food products and toiletries.

Who are WasteNot WantNot (WiN project) We are a community group with a team of volunteers collecting a range of donated and surplus items - from food to household items, toys, flowers, plants and gardening items to decorating items and craft materials. We seek to match what is available with those who need it. Where we are based --- We are based across the Waterside area in the New Forest, near Southampton and serve a number of different communities across the area. How we identify our service users and their needs --- Through strong community links we hear what is needed and by whom. Individuals and households are often referred to us by local contacts - churches, a local preschool and nursery, toddler groups or charity groups such as our local foodbank, a local housing charity and a debt advice and support group. Sometimes through recommendation from our service users new folk will come to see us. What we can offer --- Our aim is to help those most in need first, particularly where food support or additional household things are needed, although anyone is welcome to our larger food share outs to avoid waste. Straight after collecting food we drive into local communities where folk will be waiting at one of our arranged "pop ups". We have several different venues, sharing from a church hall and in other communities from pop up tables. Food is organised and folk are able to choose items that they need or can use. These "pop ups" enable us to get food out rapidly after collecting. Volunteers deliver to some who are housebound. Through chatting to our service users we discover other needs that we can look to help with or recommend them to go to other groups. During school holidays we support a local cooking project with produce who cook and feed families and the housebound. Flowers and plants are delivered to housebound, sick or bereaved folk. Larger plants to school libraries and care homes and other plants to community planting areas. We endeavour to build and strengthen our links with other local groups and charities, sharing and supporting where we can. Relationships built enable us to sign post service users to support groups locally e.g. for debt support, housing issues, mental health support, accessing childrens groups or other charitible groups offering practical support. We are continually developing new ideas to help as many as we can wherever we can. We have a public facebook page - WasteNot WantNot (WiN project) https://www.facebook.com/groups/363922535329538 you can contact us at WNWNproject@outlook.com to find out more about us. Thank you.