Sainsbury's London Acton Gardens Local

With the levels of unemployment, along with the number of low-paid employees living in Brent, many residents find themselves at a crisis point. They are unable to feed their families and provide for life’s basic needs. There may, however, be many other challenges within the family, which may contribute to the family crisis. It is bearing this in mind that the Centre of Help and Hope was conceived. The Centre provides the following services: Food bank Clothing hub Befriending service Gardening services Counselling services Light domestic help Vocational skills Intentional parenting courses

(Food Pantry & SHAP Housing Project empowers vulnerable young adults aged 18–30 through our housing project and food pantry. We provide stable accommodation, essential food support, and mentoring to foster independence and build resilience. About Our Work & Who We Help: Registered as an independent charity (No. 1186029), we operate a dedicated community food pantry alongside our supported housing initiative. Our primary focus is delivering vital nutritional aid, safe accommodation, and life-skills development to young people aged 18–30, care leavers, and local families experiencing severe hardship. What Support We Need Most: To sustain our daily food distribution and support our housing project residents, our organisation relies heavily on consistent surplus food donations—particularly ambient goods, fresh produce, bakery items, and chilled essentials. Reliable access to quality surplus food allows us to reduce local waste while directly alleviating hunger and hardship for the young people and community members we support every week.

We are a community group cooking over 2500 fresh meals a day for free through donations and volunteers during these hard times of the coronavirus. This food goes to NHS staff, care homes, residential homes, homeless shelters, mutual aid groups, food banks, vulnerable people, people who are out of work and cannot afford food. So far, we have cooked and distributed over 100,000 meals since we started. All the food we send out has been requested by all the above groups who need help. We have never wastefully and randomly sent out food just for the sake of it. On top of all of this, we make "care packages" containing everyday essentials which include food, tea, biscuits, coffee, toiletries and sanitary products to those who request the need. Most recently, we have started helping students (especially international students) who are facing evictions. They have no jobs to pay rent or buy food and are unable to get government help.