ALDI LEEDS - MORLEY

The role of AOC within the community includes -General charitable purposes - The prevention or relief of poverty - Overseas aid/famine relief - Religious activities - Economic/community development/employment - Children/young people - Elderly/old people - People with disabilities - The general public/mankind - Makes grants to individuals - Makes grants to organisations - Provides human resources - Provides services - Provides advocacy/advice/information At AOC The Ark Family Centre we offer a range of support services to the local community. Some of these are just starting out and are in development. We have a vision to touch the lives of the community to provide a safe place for children families and individuals to seek support and advice or be signposted to relevant local organisations. The vision is to improve quality of life, provide equal access to basic provision and enable individuals to grow. We have set up a food bank which operates on an open door policy so everyone is welcome and can choose what they need rather than being provided with a standard package. The aim is that people can feel valued and have equal access to basic food provision. The food supply from neighbourly will be used to meet the increasing demand and need for food. The food provided to the community is free of charge and goes to young children, teenagers and families as well as individuals who may be struggling. We have an open door policy so this is accessible to all members of the public including some families who we work with regularly. In addition to this AOC also offer a warm space called switch off and park at the ark on a weekly basis. This provides a safe space for the community to access a computer, work, talk and there are specific trained mental health practitioners available . General help and support is offered including signposting to other agencies. As part of this group we provide hot drinks and hot food to all that attend. There is no restriction and again this is an open door policy. The food from neighbourly would therefore be used for this also. Additionally we offer childrens groups and groups for parenting support and emotional wellbeing for children and parents. The aim in the near future is to expand our services to offer a group to enable families to ddvelop their skills in cooking on a budget. This will enable families to grow and share their skills through generations!

Rethink Food is an award winning non-profit organisation recognised as one of the UK’s Top 100 social enterprises in the NatWest SE100 Index 2025...on a mission to create a generation of healthy, food-literate, and environmentally conscious young people. We intercept and make sense of food surplus. Educate and empower people to live food secure lives. Redistributing to primary schools, families and those that need it. We also offer education to make the food system fair and sustainable.

The Game Changerz run a local youth and sports club in the Fieldhead area of WF17. Fieldhead is in the top 10% lower super output area, predominantly made up of council/social housing with a high unemployment rate. The Fieldhead Estate is the most socio-economically disadvantaged neighbourhood in Fieldhead, Birstall, and has suffered disproportionate challenge/difficulty because of the COVID-19 crisis, with families suffering from greater financial hardship, physical inactivity, social isolation and malnutrition. We have been working with local food share groups who have been donating food, and also we are Fare Share members to initially challenge our older youth hub members to make meals from the surplus food. From our first donation, they used eggs, bread, pesto and tomatoes to make eggy bread, scrambled eggs and omelettes etc which they all then enjoyed eating. The children and young adults that attend are rarely at home and therefor don't always get a cooked meal every day. By using surplus food donations to create their own meals, they are being fed, using waste and learning valuable life skills for the next stage of their lives. We would really like to secure collections to enable the choice / variety of what they can cook / eat / share even better. We also plan to use the food to provide food parcels to the families of the 40 children that attend our sports clubs each week.