Sainsbury's Leatherhead

We are passionate about food waste! We have set up the Leatherhead Community Fridge to collect surplus food donations from local shops and make them available to everyone in our community. Take what you need; Give what you can! Any donation you can spare goes towards saving more food from being thrown away. By taking the food, you are part of the solution to the huge UK food waste problem!

The Meeting Place was founded in 2011 with the principle aim of reducing social isolation. A coffee shop was set up in January 2012 with soft play facilities to encourage young mums and child carers to come in and stay as long as they liked. The older generation also enjoyed coming into a place where there was no time pressure. Since that time we have started up a language hub to assist those whose English is a second language and may be struggling in confidence and finding friends. We have also arranged lip reading classes for those struggling with communicating as deafness begins to limit them. In 2019 The Meeting Place agreed with the idea of having a Community Fridge, principally to reduce food waste, to be available at the times the Coffee Shop was open, initially this started on a small scale in January 2020. When the Coronavirus situation changed peoples lives we felt that we wanted to support the people who had been using the Fridge by delivering a bag of food to their door. This has grown from supporting 20 Families in March to over 170 at the present time. Most of our growth has resulted from professional referrals due to financial hardship or shielding.