Sainsbury's Sprotbrough Local

We are a church dedicated to bringing hope and joy to our community through acts of love and service. Our ongoing care home outreach involves singing hymns and spending time with residents, bringing comfort, companionship, and the joy of Christ to the elderly. We are now expanding our outreach to include the distribution of food hampers to individuals and families facing financial hardship. This includes single-parent households, the elderly, and asylum seekers. Through this initiative, we aim to offer not just food, but hope, dignity, and the assurance that they are not alone. The food we receive will also support our Bible study groups and holiday outreach programs by providing healthy snacks and meals, ensuring that children are physically nourished while they learn about God's love. By redistributing surplus food, we honour our calling to be good stewards of God's creation, reducing food waste and caring for the environment. This extension of our ministry allows us to meet immediate physical needs, while also opening the door to deeper support, prayer, and spiritual transformation.

Doncaster Foodbank has been open since September 2013 and provides free, short term, emergency, non-perishable food parcels for people identified as experiencing financial crisis throughout the City. Each emergency parcel provides a family or individual with a minimum of three days’ supply of nutritionally balanced food. Food is donated by schools, churches, businesses, and individuals or through supermarket collections. Our partnerships with local food retailers enable us to provide some surplus fresh food alongside the canned and packaged foods. As well as providing emergency food, Doncaster Foodbank provides essentials like washing powder, sanitary items, pet food, baby food (Not Milk) and toiletries. For the first 9 years of operation the community fed the community as supply matched demand, however since 2022, our shopping bills have steadily risen and the food bank now also relies heavily on funding streams such as grants to buy stock in bulk, to boost the drop in food donations which has been caused by the current cost of living crisis. Every client is referred by one of over 100 Doncaster front-line care professional agencies, such as Doncaster Council, Citizens Advice, Family hubs, School liaison officers, Probation officers, Health visitors, Housing and Mental health teams as well as social workers and other Social Prescribers. They identify people in crisis and issue them with an electronic food bank voucher code which can be exchanged at one of our three food bank centres, for an emergency food parcel. The food parcels have been designed by dieticians to provide recipients with a nutritionally balanced diet. Specific dietary requirements and allergies are catered for, and a client’s cooking facilities are considered, for example being homeless or living in hostel accommodation. Currently, those in need can visit us for provisions on: Tuesdays 10am – 12 noon, St Paul’s Church Wednesdays 10am – 12 noon, St James’ Church Thursdays 10am – 12 noon, Rossington Community Baptist Church (Holmescarr Centre) Fridays 10am – 12 noon, St James’ Church Each foodbank session is run by a team of dedicated volunteers who welcome service users to our centres and offer a warm drink and a snack. They work alongside a rotation of various topical, local support agencies who can advise clients on site and at further appointments, how to handle their longer-term issues and recognise when additional help is needed. Our food bank service is designed to be an emergency food provision service and as such, it is important to put clients in touch with organisations who can help them address the underlying cause of their crisis. We partner with Citizens Advice Doncaster Borough who provide us with a generalist advisor at every session, and we are committed to facilitating support for our clients and helping them to maximise their incomes so that they can break free from the cycle of food poverty.

Development Trust Doncaster (DTD) is one of South Yorkshire’s leading Development Trusts, with dedicated members of staff working on a variety of regeneration projects to improve the local economy, build thriving communities and encourage enterprise. We run a foodbank and community pantry from Bullcroft Memorial Hall each week.