Pret Bournemouth

We run a Community Fridge from Townsend Community Centre. Running alongside the Fridge project we offer coffee mornings, craft club, free clothes, weekly cooking workshops which all take place at Townsend Community Centre. The Community Fridge abides by the same environmental health standards for food safety as other food businesses. Combined with storage for ambient food, it is stocked with surplus food from supermarkets, local shops and other food businesses as well as donations from local people. Everyone is welcome to take food, the focus being on sharing good food and ensuring it is eaten. Caroline Green, Community Liaison Officer for Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole Council said “A successful Community Fridge deals with so many different issues at the same time. Community Fridges are a fantastic way to deal with surplus food which has a huge impact on the environment, they can help people in food poverty to access free food and they are a chance to bring the community together over a shared resource. We are really excited to have launched the first Community Fridge in Bournemouth at Townsend Community Centre. The project is open Monday - Friday from 9-11.30am inside the Centre. Outside we have an external fridge which can be accessed 24/7. Anne Melly, Chair of the Townsend Community Growers said "The Growers are really supportive of the Fridge project. The Growers regularly grow fresh fruit and vegetables which are then shared via the Fridge.” The Fridge project regularly works with the charity, The Friendly Food Club. Cooking workshops and demos are held using food from the Fridge #wastenotwabtnot. To find out more about the Townsend Community Fridge contact caroline.green@bcpcouncil.gov.uk or 01202 301556.

Bournemouth Recycle is a community Facebook group where we work to save items from landfill, while supporting the local community. Many thousands of items are saved from potential landfill and passed onto other people for re-use. We do not charge for our services. The group was founded in 2020 by Sharon Valler and has over 30,000 local members. Bournemouth Recycle is run by an admin team of 60 local volunteers, covering our group, food surplus scheme and charity collection programme. As well as recycling (around 300 posts per day), we collect and distribute food surplus, three times per week, within our local community and offer additional support to NHS staff in the form of food parcels. We also run a monthly charity appeal, collecting items for local organisations, through our drop off points throughout the area. "The Plot", also founded by Sharon Valler, has raised almost £23,000 for NHS staff welfare locally. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02WjDuAmqUarUEmq27HTFV2Nvidf5GPG1cB2g2ExtmSofYPGJxKZMA3E2jDejpogGtl&id=1314702786 https://bbc.in/3YNaF3C?fbclid=IwAR0SzrRn5Opvs_IKSQyzPEBRZgMoROJNW-juWMxjKNg13cmerrizyKLsH44

We are a non profit group who care for the community and less fortunate. Times have been hard over the last 18 months and we just wanted to do something for everyone. I started collecting surplus foods and through our Facebook page We are humans Canford Heath, distributed to local families young and old. For all the work I do I was recognised by the Culinarily Chefs and won the Culinarily Hero award.