ALDI STEWARTON - RIGG ST

We recently started our food bank due to the current covid pandemic as we had discovered that many people in our community were struggling to feed their families. We decided to take matters into our own hands to feed our community! So far we have helped, nursing homes, sheltered housing, elderly, people who are shielding and various families around the Kilmarnock Area, however this isn't enough there are still too many people going hungry and we want to feed them all!

Blether has a community fridge, a community larder and a community shop selling locally grown fresh food at low cost. We are based in the old Totnosh building at 103 Main Street, Neilston. One of our aims is to remove the stigma from people accessing free food and to increase the dignity involved, for these reasons anyone can access our services and food, you don't need to be referred. We provide a physical location for third sector organisations and council bodies to provide support to residents in the community. Including mental health charities. We're committed to helping people reduce food waste and to access free and low cost locally grown food in a dignified manner. We run workshops in ways to preserve food, to use up left overs , to create natural bath products, seed paper cards. Currently all our services are available for free. At some point in the future we will create a small element of a shop selling locally grown fresh food which will be subsidised. We have lots of photos available of our work so far on our social media channels. We have already partnered with a few local organisations and can ask them for references if required. We have also been visited by our local MSP.

Lochwinnoch Food Committee is a dignified food project with a Pantry distributing surplus food from supermarkets four days per week. We deliver parcels to vulnerable houses on a fifth day, and out Community Fridge/Freezer is open 24/7 for members. Membership is free and we operate on a pay-what-you can donation basis. We have nearly 2000 members and more than 70 volunteers aged from 12 to 80! The aims of the projects are to tackle food insecurity locally as well as the climate emergency. We grow our own food too in local sites. The Larder is about more than just food though - it's a social hub where friendships form and people connect. We're reducing social isolation and also helping to signpost people to other support services; it's easy to fall through the gaps when living rurally. People from across Renfrewshire and North Ayrshire access the project - all are welcome! We also run free cooking classes as fermenting demonstrations. We also have two sister-projects: the Feel Good Festival is a programme of wellbeing events designed to help build community, connect people and tackle mental health. We also have Diggin' It which is an initiative supporting people to grow their own food from their own homes. It includes a free Seed Library and a garden equipment swap-shop. We are also developing a new project idea to help us become more financially sustainable. the idea is for this to be a retail space and Community Hub. We hope to develop a community kitchen, charity shop and pop-up eatery which we can use for all the projects and could also help generate some income. Between the projects, we can use pretty much any kind of surplus - food, kitchen equipment, homeware, clothes, decorating equipment and tools, gardening equipment and plants.