ALDI MILTON KEYNES - STANTONBURY

The One Love Luncheon Club focuses on supporting retired community, especially but not limited to the Black elderly and vulnerable adults within the ethnic minority community, providing culturally relevant meals and programs to enhance well-being and connection. Through strong community partnerships, we ensure these individuals receive the care, support, and sense of belonging they deserve. The ONE LOVE LUNCHEON CLUB is dedicated to fostering social inclusion, cultural exchange, and community engagement. We aim to create a safe, welcoming, and inclusive space where individuals from all cultures, particularly black communities, can socialize, share experiences, and combat isolation. Our club celebrates diversity, promotes understanding, and strengthens the bonds within the community through shared activities, meals, and meaningful interactions. We have partnered with Wolverton parish council and Asda Supermarket, which has allocated a staff member who is the community champion to help volunteer for us. We may get additional foods from them, but nothing has been arranged as yet. We have partnered with Jerknrum, Annie’s, AgeUK, Alzheimer’s Society and Milton Keynes Council Research tells me the service users who used to attend something similar to my project and now have nowhere else to go. I have collaborated with MK Council( head of older people and the commissioning board), who have also confirmed, there is nothing out there for the BAME elders. I am my mum's main carer with dementia and I did not find anything where my mum plus her peers have that sense of belonging, share cultural stories and can reminisce about the old times. Our club will officially launch on Tuesday 15th April. We will offer transport with Mk Connect for the elderly to attend, we will offer food delivery service for the service users unable to attend Activities like arts and crafts, board games, bingo, support by sitting and chatting. Additional support from Alzheimer’s and Age UK who I also have partnered with to offer resources and support for the elders who need it!! Physical support will also be offered in terms of chair yoga and getting those up who can manage some dancing to traditional music. Any surplus food collected by One Love Luncheon Club will be used to maximize support for the elderly in our community. It will be repurposed to create additional meals, ensuring variety and nourishment for our members. Additionally, surplus food will be packaged and given to the elderly to take home, helping them access nutritious meals beyond our gatherings. This approach reduces food waste while providing continued support to those who may struggle with meal preparation. Our goal is to ensure that no food goes unused and that our elders always have access to good, wholesome meals. We officially start on the 15th April so I can only supply you with flyers and brochures. I am currently working on getting press to our grand opening, but none at the moment.

MK Community Fridge began as two fridges and one freezer located in the foyer of The Old Bath House Community Centre, Stratford Road, Wolverton. The project was launched on Saturday 1 July 2017 and to date it has shared more than 500 tons of food with the people of Milton Keynes The network of community fridges in Milton Keynes is growing and they can be found in Coffee Hall, Netherfield, Great Linford, Conniburrow Wolverton and Westcroft - www.mkcommunityfridge.org The community fridge project has inspired a pop-up cafe, surplus supper events and craft sharing sessions all which encourage communities to bond and share resources that might otherwise be wasted. In February 2021 we piloted a new project with Hubbub Foundation UK that uses electric vehicles and paid riders to collect food on behalf of community fridges in Milton Keynes. Our hope is that this increases the amount of food that we can stop from being wasted and further lower our impact on the environment. It will also help our community fridges to support their projects, volunteers and lower costs for their venues - www.foodconnect.io ‘Yes, the fridge has impacted our household. It's a great lesson for the kids in sharing and not wasting and has enforced the already well established community feel in Wolverton’ – Fridge user ‘My husband was signed off work and we couldn't afford much food we have a 1 year old so fresh food is very important to us and we were able to feed ourselves thanks to the community fridge. It definitely shows people care and gives a lovely sense of community.’ – Fridge user 'I’m so pleased that the pumpkins have been of use. I get fun growing them, and its better still when the vegetables end up being eaten and enjoyed.' – Tim, Local Farmer

Sharing is Caring is a food service that serves students nationwide with the intention to expand internationally. The program’s focus is to identify area needs for food requirement amongst students first and utilise resources to satisfy those needs in order to eliminate hunger in our student community. We operate within the Welfare Office at our partnering universities so as to limit abuse of the service. Students are encouraged to volunteer in every aspect of the food service as voluntary work experience is highly recognised and preferred by many employers in varying sectors. It is deep sadness that we have identified a large community of students who do not eat on an average day to day basis simply because they cannot afford to. It is our intention to operate a warehouse facility at every university and college in the United Kingdom where we will store donated or rescued food for distribution to students. The program actively solicits food from retailers, wholesalers, and processors. In addition, we plan to collect food donations from restaurants for immediate distribution to service programs. It is estimated that the number of students who need services from us will increase during the next five years as the cost of living increases. Though there are a number of food banks available countrywide, there is that element of embarrassment that a student has to overcome to approach them. It is with this in mind that we are providing a more specific service solely for students. It is within our plan to have a smart phone application that allows students to indicate their need and desire for food. Sharing is Caring is therefore an important resource because we can respond quickly with the one of the most important resources these students need. Food! Our services help to improve the wellbeing and welfare of students and assist greatly in achieving goals that have been set. We know that our service is a small investment with regards to the influence hunger has on our health, however, it must be implemented as the cost of ignoring the problem regarding student hunger could possibly be detrimental in the long run especially in the face of rising university costs without added incentives. We all know that “hungry” should never be a pronoun for “student”, however; today sub-standardisation of this matter is a reality for some.