Sainsbury's Fairfield Park

We started in October 2015 feeding the homeless, rootless and in need on a Saturday. We now run a Social Supermarket on Tuesdays 12 - 2, a fresh fruit and vegetable food bank on Thursdays 12 - 2 all from surplus food from Supermarkets and Saturdays we serve hot food 5 - 6pm. We currently run 5 projects. Our first project is Dine With Us on The Streets - Cherries Legacy where we support between 80 to 100 people with hot hearty food, take away food such as tins, sandwiches, crisps, fruit, hot drinks, toiletries and clothes, every Saturday These are people who are either street homeless, in hostels, on means tested benefits or in other financial crisis. We have been running this project since October 2015 and we believe in treating people with respect and with dignity. Our second project is Dine With Us Community Larder, our Food Bank project ,launched in February 2019, giving access to vital nourishment for those suffering food poverty. The need for this is much greater than we anticipated and we now need more partners so we can ensure that we have enough food to meet the demand. We are also incurring significant costs operating the programme, with the yearly rent on the unit, running costs and other sundries. We have seen as many as 75 (seventy five) families come to collect food in a single day. Our third project sees us support 11 schools with more looking to come on board (which we cannot commit to yet as we do not have enough food). Fresh fruit and vegetables and protein play a pivotal part in our organisation, as is encouraging people to eat more healthily, regardless of their circumstances. Our fourth project is sending out care packages to the community, quite often through the schools as well and our fifth project is opening and running Bedfords first Social Supermarket which has been in operation since April 2020. This gives people access to affordable food and provides a fundraising vehicle for us, to help towards the other projects we run on a goodwill basis.

In 2011 Bedford Foodbank starting providing 3 days worth of food to local people in crisis., over the last 9 years we have seen a demand in our services and we regularly feed over 2000 people each month.. We rely on donations of food to feed people who are referred to us by over 220 local agencies .People then come to one of our 7 distribution centres where they are welcomed and receive non perishable food free of charge for 3-5days. We have a wonderful team of over 140 volunteers who enable this to happen.

SOFEA's mission is to enable the transformation of the lives of vulnerable people, with a major focus on young people and on their communities. SOFEA is focused on people, and we have lots of tools in our box to enable them to fulfil their potential with us through: 1) Work – teaching employability skills, providing work experience, volunteering, employment through social enterprises. 3) Wellbeing advice – social prescribing, mental health support, nutritional advice, coaching, mentoring, behavioural change, sport, social interaction. 3) Study – teaching of Maths and English, broader curriculum subjects, Getting Oxfordshire Online. Core to SOFEA's overall offering is the redistribution of surplus food from our warehouses in Didcot and Milton Keynes to our community larders and community food members - critically delivering food to those going hungry, and eliminating landfill waste.