Sainsbury's Kingswood

We are BS15 CIC has been running since 2021. Our first project, The Kingswood Kitchen opened in June 2021, with three other projects following within 18 months; The Trinity Food Garden, The Beacon Cafe Hanham and The Kingswood Food Club. The Kingswood Kitchen now serves an average of 80-100 hot meals every Thursday. It runs on a pay-as-you-can model and is open to any household local to BS15. The Food Club redistributes food surplus to support 40-50 households each week with affordable food. Households pay a £2 annual membership and £3 for a bag of shopping worth £15-£20 at supermarket prices. The Beacon Cafe is (open Wednesday to Saturday) thriving and now hosts a dementia cafe, social group for deaf people and other informal groups. It uses a 'Pay-as-You-Can' model. Our organisational aims are to reduce food inequality and social isolation in the area while also reducing food waste.

Friends of Air Balloon are a group of parents, teachers and local people who undertake fundraising events for and try to support Air Balloon Hill Primary School, Bristol in many ways. We try and welcome the families of around 700 students and support everyone as best as we can. We need items for events as well as items to support the many families in the local area that require support and kindness for the improvement of the neighbourhood. Accessibility is at our forefront, so we support the whole community with surplus collections through Neighbourly for free to enable everyone to benefit and reduce the impact of the cost-of-living.

Kingsmeadow @ Made Forever is a vibrant community wellbeing hub. A registered charity (no 1148905), for over 15 years we have worked with isolated, vulnerable, and disadvantaged families and individuals of all ages, gender, and ethnicity across our community. Our focus is to work with our beneficiaries to help them move forward, to nurture and support them to take control of their lives and maintain that positive journey. Originally working in a small flat on the Kingsmeadow Estate, in March 2018 we were presented with the opportunity to take over the Made Forever youth centre building in Fisher Road. With help from community members, the building was transformed into a fantastic community wellbeing hub in the heart of Kingswood. The hub is now a focal point for the area, providing a variety of wellbeing activities and support services available to all members of community. Alongside a daily programme of wellbeing activities, we run a community garden, refurbishment & recycling workshop, community cafe, food & essential items bank, charity shop and a crisis prevention & personalised support service where people can seek help with the challenges they face. The outdoor sports court, green space, counselling spaces, lounge, indoor sports hall, climbing wall, bouldering room & meeting rooms are used to full capacity to offer a wide range of support techniques. We provide an emotional support platform, where people are able to express emotions confidentially and freely, supported by our trained and experienced staff. We work with people to help them understand and deal with their thoughts and emotions, providing continual encouragement, motivation and mentoring. Practical support sits alongside emotional support. We provide active help and advocacy in areas such as housing, health/wellbeing, welfare, debt, budgeting, managing money, benefits and completing forms. We also provide hot meals and food parcels. Donations of longlife food such as tinned soup and vegetables, dried pasta and rice, tinned meat and fish, teabags, UHT milk, biscuits and cereals, as well as fresh, are in particular high demand at this time. We provide emergency warm clothing and blankets, essential hygiene kits (including shampoo, shower gel, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, toilet roll, menstrual products, hand sanitiser), household products (including washing up liquid, washing powder) and baby care packs including nappies, nappy rash cream, baby wipes, soap and shampoo). We accept donations of food, clothing, household products and items, gardening equipment, arts and crafts materials. All monetary donations go directly towards our wellbeing activities and services for the individuals and families we support. We are enormously grateful for all donations we receive. All gifts have a tremendous impact on our community’s wellbeing, and enable us to continue to provide support and services directly to those in need. Thank you.