ALDI WHITTLESEY

The Food Basket is a community fridge operating across Peterborough. We offer local fresh food to the community, reducing food waste and tackling food insecurity. The community fridge is open to all. There is no need to be in receipt of benefits and you do not need a referral or voucher to access this free service, just come along to your chosen session and bring a bag. Due to how we receive our food we cannot guarantee what we will have but in general it is a mix of fresh fruit and vegetables from farms and supermarkets and bakery goods such as bread and cakes. This can help with food costs and stop food going to waste, good for your pocket and the environment! Our Extra Helpings programme offers additional support for our patrons by linking with other organisations with specialist knowledge. We are currently working with Healthy You, Cross Keys Homes, and Woodgreen.

Helping Whittlesey is a Facebook group that has been running for the last 7 years and has 2.6k members. We became a registered charity in 2023. We help support the community with things ranging from helping people get back on their feet with furniture donations, Christmas toy appeals, rallying around when people are struggling to buy food etc. It's very community based and it's what Whittlesey does best! Working in the recycling sector, we became aware of just how much gets good stuff gets thrown away. Not just food, but furniture to. We decided to make it official and help do our part for the environment. Visiting other community fridges & pantry's to get an idea on the set up and what we would need to do, we know that the Pantry would be a huge asset to our town. From the Facebook page and the anonymous posting, we know that people are sometimes embarrassed about accessing a food bank, but also there are also people who want to help the environment and reduce how much gets thrown away. We needed a venue first! We approached Colin at The Falcon Hotel in Whittlesey, who has let us use his outside storage area. From July 23, with the support from our community in donations, time and trade skills and then securing funding from The Postcode Lottery & Fenland District Council through PECT (Peterborough based environment and sustainability organisations) we have transformed the unit into The Helping Whittlesey Community Pantry. In our first year of opening, we have collected on average 2.5 tonne of food and flowers a month and re distributed it back into the community and helped local good causes. We have also been working with the communities service team for Fenland council as part of their 'closer to communities' commitment, and health professionals such as the social prescribing link worker from Jenner healthcare. This joined approach offers a valuable co-ordinated resource to the community, while also complementing existing community resources and linking to a network of social prescribers. Our aim is that the Community Pantry is exclusive to all in the local community and food that is still usable will be available for anyone to access. We are also working with local people who work with the vulnerable and the youth, to how we can help them with surplus food we receive. We have a donation tin, if people wish to donate to go towards the utility bill they can, but it's not compulsory. As we speak, we are in the process of looking to set up a repair shop, where local skilled craftspeople & tradespeople can put their skills to good use and stop household items going to landfill and re distributing them back into the community.

Christian local project supporting local families in need by providing emergency food parcels, as well as signposting and additional support where appropriate. We are seeking food donations. We mainly use tinned, and non perishable food items but can take certain ambient food but please contact us first.