Sainsbury's Rayleigh Weir

The One Love Project is a small charity offering non-referral food and support to the community of Southend and the surrounding areas. We offer support to those most vulnerable within our community, including those experiencing homelessness, food and fuel poverty and loneliness. Everyone who walks through our door is welcomed to our little village, built of shipping containers, on a building site! We have worked hard to ensure we offer a safe, non-judgemental and trauma informed space, which has allowed the team to build trust with our guests, to act as a bridge between service user and statutory services. The aim being to help them access the right support, quickly and effectively, as well as preventing any service users from feeling like they aren’t being heard. The One Love Project is often described as a community by our guests, volunteers and partners. We run on donations of food and money from the local community, fundraising and grant applications. We are not a commissioned service. In 2024, we provided over 25,000 meals/food for meals and support. We run three evening services where we provide fresh food, a hot meal and dessert, clothing, showers and access to vital services such as mental health support, dentist, physical health support, drug and alcohol services, sexual health support, haircuts and chiropodist etc. One of these services is for women only. Wellbeing Wednesday where guests co-produced the session to include arts, crafts, gardening and cultural visits. This session is to increase self confidence and self-worth, friendships and community and have fun. We also run two foodbanks for individuals and families. Here, guests get access to fresh food, non-perishables and toiletries, homeware and clothing. We put on activities for children in the school holidays so they don't feel like they are at a food bank and we provide school uniform for free. We are working on establishing the only non-referral evening foodbank for working families and students. info@theoneloveproject.co.uk

We are a reflection of our local community. We break down barriers between races and culture by sharing and exploring different cultures around us through food. dance clothing, music and more. We deliver our programme at the Youth service centre Hub in Basildon town centre. We are in partnership with Basildon Borough Council and the Essex Youth service. Our service users come through commendation and advertisements. We have had an interview at the Gateway 97.8 Radio, watch the interview on our Facebook page, click on the Facebook link on this page. See pictures of some of our community events.

The objective of the charity is the relief of poverty, both material and emotional in england & wales and abroad through: the person to person involvement of its voluntary members engaged in befriending and through 'special works' , which are projects established to address specific needs in the local community We collect from the following stores: Aldi south Benfleet Lidl. Canvey Island Lidl. Hadleigh Essex M&S. Canvey Island M&S. Rayleigh Sainsburys Canvey Island Sainsburys. Rayleigh Sainsburys. South Benfleet We collect the food six days a week We deliver it to the housebound and elderly and large families in the Castle Point Borough Council Area We also deliver to 3 Food Banks, 5 schools, 3 children’s homes , a senior citizen group and 2 care homes. We give out 51000 parcels last year and delivered 5000 to people’s doors. We also helped with 45 essential housing items, eg washing machines, fridge freezer and air fryers. We run a group of volunteers, that mainly assist with food parcels and essential items for the homes of people in the Castle Point Borough Council Area. The local council also provides us with support in sending their staff to support us, and also ask us to provide spaces for volunteers to help us from their housing list We would love to have more volunteers helping us.