Sainsbury's Holborn Local

The charity is a membership based food operation providing food to people on low incomes in the Burgess Hill area. A weekly subscription is paid by members and this entitles them to shop for food to a higher value than their subscription allowing tight budgets to stretch further. We offer as close to a normal shopping experience as possible with the key words, hope , dignity and choice forming the base for everything we do. Individuals can apply to use the Pantry online or in person. There is a waiting list due to the demands on our service. We currently have over 250 members representing over 800 individuals in Mid Sussex. We also offer wraparound support in the form of cookery classes, maths and literacy support, housing advice, IT support, energy advice and social activities.

We are a group of dedicated volunteers who help out at a weekly soup kitchen in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Holborn, London, every Sunday at 6.15-8pm where we distribute food to 100-110 of the most vulnerable members of society. The soup kitchen is held within two minutes walk of Holborn station. We provide our guests with a hot meal (meatballs and rice/vegan lentils and rice), a sandwich (usually a selection of meat/fish/vegetarian/vegan is on offer), a piece of fruit, dessert, water, tea/coffee and any other items which volunteers personally fundraise for and bring including toiletries, clothes, tinned food etc. We also provide for individual needs, where possible, including sleeping bags, footwear etc to help guests through difficult times. It has been through our volunteers' dedication and commitment that we have expanded and found donation streams to ensure our continued success. What started off as a distribution where homemade sandwiches were distributed has grown to allow guests to leave with 2-3 days worth of food. We are the only soup kitchen which attends the site every Sunday, 52 weeks a year, this includes Christmas Day and New Year's Day. And we are one of very few that offer meat to our guests, our guests also have an option of halal food every week.

We run a surplus foodbank in Somers Town in the borough of Camden in London. All thanks to 50 local volunteers who help us to support 80 local households, 11 hostels, 1 after-school club and 1 church group. We are supporting just over 125 children now living in poverty. We do this by collecting surplus from 45 local stores every week and redistributing them in a timely manner all thanks to each volunteer commiting to a regular shift weekly/ alternate weeks. Collections are made by bicycle using hitch on/off trailers, by foot using hand carts and some volunteers use their cars for those big collections and drop-offs to big hostels. We also operate a 'Room of thing's where local households that we support can take anything they need from. Items are donated by local businesses and people. There isn't much we can't find a home for. In our small courtyard we also have a surplus cart where people passing by can take what they need. This is about supporting local people whilst also being a part of a circular reuse mode. Our volunteers support us with so much more, from helping local residents with their CVs, mentoring, sewing surplus food bags from textile waste, running a monthly free clothing swap and more. Our project is person centred, each volunteer has something meaningful to offer a local person; this is where community happens. We are just a team of 2 and are BAME-Led. Our work with Neighbourly is a key part to be able to support local people. You can find out more about the impact your support has on our beneficiaries on our website and you can visually see what our operation looks like on our instagram. We always need volunteers.