Sainsbury's Rayleigh Eastwood Rd Local

The objective of the charity is the relief of poverty, both material and emotional in england & wales and abroad through: the person to person involvement of its voluntary members engaged in befriending and through 'special works' , which are projects established to address specific needs in the local community We collect from the following stores: Aldi south Benfleet Lidl. Canvey Island Lidl. Hadleigh Essex M&S. Canvey Island M&S. Rayleigh Sainsburys Canvey Island Sainsburys. Rayleigh Sainsburys. South Benfleet We collect the food six days a week We deliver it to the housebound and elderly and large families in the Castle Point Borough Council Area We also deliver to 3 Food Banks, 5 schools, 3 children’s homes , a senior citizen group and 2 care homes. We give out 51000 parcels last year and delivered 5000 to people’s doors. We also helped with 45 essential housing items, eg washing machines, fridge freezer and air fryers. We run a group of volunteers, that mainly assist with food parcels and essential items for the homes of people in the Castle Point Borough Council Area. The local council also provides us with support in sending their staff to support us, and also ask us to provide spaces for volunteers to help us from their housing list We would love to have more volunteers helping us.

We provide 3 days' worth of food parcels and other items to those referred to us by local professional agencies/groups and who have been identified as in a emergency or crisis situation.

The Community Fridge is located in our community cafe, The Coffee Grind. It is open Monday to Friday and available to everone to donate fresh fruit, veg etc. It is then available to use by those people who can put it to good use. Located within a complex of other local charities people are often signposted to use the fridge by other commuity groups such as a mental health charity and housing association. A local volunteer for a soup kitchen is a regular visitor on a Friday who makes use of any remaining items to cook meals for those who are homeless. Some of the food is used by our Day Centres who support adult with disabilities and those living with dementia. It is also used by our Young Carers service. Our cooks use the food to make healthy nutritious meals ensuring that when people are using our service they eat well. At our Young Carers group it is mainly snacks rather than meals so it encourages them to eat fruit. The Community Cafe is a fundraising venture for our charity and operated through our trading company. It serves high quality hot and cold drinks, breakfasts, lunches and snacks. It is mainly staffed by volunteers including a number of people with mild learning disabilities to help them gain vital work skills in order to get on the job ladder. We provide them with training including using the barista machine and level 2 food hygiene. The Community Cafe are responsible to checking the temperature of the Community Fridge and monitoring its contents.