GAIL's Bakery Clapham Old Town

The Dwaynamics Community Centre’s Nourishment Hub is more than a food project it is a lifeline, a warm table, and a doorway to dignity for families and individuals navigating hardship in Lambeth and the surrounding areas. Rooted in the legacy of Dwayne Simpson and guided by the leadership of Pastor Lorraine Jones Burrell MBE, the Hub embodies a simple but radical idea: when people are loved, welcomed, and well-fed, they can start to heal, stabilise, and thrive. From its earliest days, the Nourishment Hub has been a place where nourishment is holistic—body, mind, and spirit served with compassion, consistency, and community pride. The Hub was born from lived experience. After the tragic loss of her son Dwayne to knife crime, Pastor Lorraine channelled her grief into purpose, founding the Dwayne Simpson Foundation and building Dwaynamics into a beacon for youth development, family support, and community resilience. Food quickly emerged as a unifying language a way to meet urgent needs while building trust. In a borough shaped by both rich cultural heritage and deep inequalities, the costs of housing, health challenges, and the realities of poverty often collide. The Nourishment Hub responds by offering hot, nutritious meals, culturally familiar ingredients, and ready-to-heat dishes that respect the diverse communities it serves. But it also offers what many services do not: time to listen, space to be seen, and practical pathways forward. A typical session at the Nourishment Hub is alive with conversation and care. Volunteers greet guests by name. Children tuck into balanced meals while older residents are offered tea, a seat, and company. People can take away groceries that reflect choice and dignity not leftovers, but quality foods selected with families in mind. For those who are street homeless, sofa-surfing, or in temporary accommodation, the Hub provides ready-cooked meals and light-touch support that acknowledges complex realities like addiction, trauma, and poor health. The approach is trauma-informed, non-judgmental, and intentionally warm. As one guest put it, “Dwaynamics makes me feel happier and hopeful” a testament to the healing power of hospitality and consistency. Beyond the plate, the Hub functions as a bridge to wider help. Staff and trained volunteers offer gentle signposting and introductions to local services: GP registrations, diabetes and nutritional advice, welfare rights and housing guidance, safeguarding support for families, and connections to training and employment opportunities. Partner drop-ins from health teams, schools, and community policing are invited to meet residents on their terms, in a familiar, non-intimidating space. This fabric of collaboration reflects Dwaynamics’ broader mission: to reduce harm, build trust, and strengthen neighbourhood safety through everyday relationship-building. The Nourishment Hub is a cornerstone of Dwaynamics’ intergenerational model. On any given week you may see young people

Looprun is a response division and part of an independent social enterprise. This is more than food and is part of a supportive services platform to help people get sustained in their own individual way. With up to 94% success rate and seeing once those receiving free Looprun response bags to returning to stores as shoppers with baskets full. These are the impact stories created when all come together to do good for good. Service users are signposted to Looprun mostly from referrals including professionals in social and healthcare. Looprun provides free non perishables, perishable food, toiletries, and brand new clothing to people facing a temporary challenge. Whatever supermarkets, stores, and retailers can do is turned into a grateful donation to a neighbour in need. This is a response to real people in real-time. No food is banked providing a direct in and out service. We believe if the food is stored then a person in need is not getting any food, hence we provide an instant response and instant impact service. Looprun has access to professional volunteers who carry out a confidential support service to people in need. From homeless shelters, hostels, sheltered housing, care homes, soup kitchens and schools. This is a non voucher, free and confidential service. This means Looprun can reach more people in need with food donations. Anyone that receives a Looprun bag of essential food items is sustained thus creating a loop cycle. All are invited to become part of these sustainable stories in your local community. For further information and gallery access on the impact of Looprun please visit: Website: https://www.looprun-sciv.online/

Waste Not Want Not Battersea is a volunteer-run charity that collects surplus food from nearby markets and suppliers (Covent Garden Market, City Harvest, and local retailers) and distributes it to the local community, saving around 150kg of food every week from going to waste. We promote an inclusive community environment, where nobody has to prove their need. Under normal circumstances we run twice-weekly food sharing sessions for 50-60 people at community centers and coordinate healthy eating classes, community meals, catering for events, and outreach to homeless people. During Covid-19, we are focused on providing emergency food to people in need in Battersea and other areas of Wandsworth, including vulnerable people needing to self-isolate and those who will otherwise struggle to access adequate, nutritious food: older people, people with SEND, families experiencing food poverty, people from BAME communities. We seek funding to rapidly scale up operations to meet the greatly increased demand: we are aware of 800 people who need our service and expect more to be referred. We need to work from three bases and to employ paid staff for three months to cope with producing the volume of food needed. We currently use 30 volunteers and would like to take on 30 more, but need professional staff to recruit, manage, and support them. We need a committed, contracted driver to pick up fresh produce from suppliers (starting at 4 am) and deliver meals to the community, and we need a Project Manager to run the operation, which will provide 1,200 meals/food parcels per week. We are working with local churches, voluntary organizations, Coronavirus Angels, local Mutual Aid groups and schools to identify who is most in need. We have partnered with local organizations (including Regenerate Rise and Street Kitchen) to pool resources and ensure we are not duplicating work.