Sainsbury's White Rose

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!

ln August 2007, ECE recieved a Certificate of Appreciation on behalf of 300,000 members of the IYF (International Youth Fellowship) for our contribution to the UK branch. In September 2008, Esther Community Enterprise was awarded certificates from the Lord Mayor of Croydon, for having carried out 100 hours of volunteering activities. On the 2 June 2011, ECE was awarded with theQueens Award for Voluntary Service, MBE. This is the highest award given to voluntary groups in the United Kingdom, and as such, is equivalent in status to the MBE. This prestigious UK National Honour recognises outstanding voluntary contributions and sets the national benchmark for excellence in volunteering, with the work of those awarded being judged to be of the highest standard. We aim to meet those who have needs in the local community by redistribution of food and other consumables donated from retailers. ECE makes a worthwhile collective response to the 3 tenets of sustainable development, namely social, economical and environmental needs. ECE forms a consortium with other charities, faith groups, projects and organisations. We have over 70 Project Co-ordinators. They manage and help to distribute the food/groceries and clothing items within the local communities across the UK, on behalf of ECE. We have sustained our social enterprise through the goodwill and hard work of over 400 drivers and countless volunteers, who contribute their time, transportation and finance to this worthy cause. Near sell by date food is collected on a daily basis from a range of supermarkets and other retailers and diverted to those that need it most ECE feeds in excess of 40,000 people per week and this is steadily on the increase as we expand across the UK

Our organisation was created in October 2020 during the coronavirus period to support our community with foodbank/foodshare, jobs and accommodation, also we offer various community events,programmes and projects funded by various organisations such as Leeds community foundation, Leeds city council and central government, Arnold Clark Community Fund.We have given out up to date free food percel to support families in hardship worth more than £150,000.00, also our recent partnership with Neigbourly,Fareshare, collection of food items from M&S Foods Tesco,Asda,Morrisons,Aldi, and Hamara Health Living Leeds have really boosted up our foodshare programme feeding the community, tackling food waste witjin our community, our challenges is the logistics collection and distribution,and we now have a van to support 100% our weekly for our mobile van foodbank/foodshare programmes for collection and redistribution of this food items as to continue to to help people in deprived areas going through hard times, every charity and community group are stretched and we need more support that support now more than ever before.