Lidl Bishops Stortford

We are a community wellbeing project in Essex serving West Essex and East Herts. We are based at Crafton Green, Stansted Mountfitchet, next door to the library and the Crafton Green car park. We have a welcoming community café and garden. From our centre people are also able to access help and support from our partner organisations, join clubs and interest groups, and share their skills with others. We also run a Community Food Share project in up to 6 different locations every week helping to reduce the amount of food going to waste and a NEW community radio station to further connect our community. For TouchPoint Foodshares please check the website for up to date information for locations and times. https://www.thetouchpoint.org/the-touchpoint-community-food-share/ TouchPoint Foodshare distributes food surplus for free to everyone that attends. By welcoming everyone it removes barriers and we thank the visitors for saving food from going into landfill. TouchPoint distributes for free 8Mt-10Mts a month. The total valuer of the food distributed during 2025 was approximately £500,000. The average value of a bag of groceries from TouchPoint Foodshare is £26.50. If a visitor attends a weekly foodshare every week throughout the year they can save over £1300 from the grocery bill annually. TouchPoint Active runs a range of sessions each week, from bootcamps to yoga, chair-based exercise to running. All sessions are free and accessible to all. Our “give what you can ” system enables those who wish to donate to do so. The sessions are held by fully qualified instructors and are suitable for all abilities. Check the website for up to date information of times and locations. https://www.thetouchpoint.org/touchpoint-active/ The TouchPoint Community Café is open every Thursday from 10am to 5pm, and every Friday from 8.30am to 12pm, and is a welcoming place to catch up with friends and relax. We serve a selection of hot and cold drinks and snacks, with hot food available on Thursdays between 12.30pm and 2.30pm, and free breakfast served on a Friday between 9am and 10am. Tea, coffee and squash are FREE, and cakes and snacks are available to buy. We also have a ‘Pay it Forward’ donation box if you would like to make a contribution.

Our Village Hallis used by many social, physical, arts and educational groups but we as Trustees have recognised the need for social prescribing activities post covid. We have set up a community breakfast, relaxed afternoon cinema, bereavement group, community warmth and welcome cafe, digital inclusion workshop, crafts, games and evening cinema. We work with our sponsors on how we can bring our communities together when there is the cost of living crisis and energy crisis. With this in mind we provide food at all our community run groups without charging. We do have a donation box but it is not compulsory. We also have food heroes distributing out of date food at our hub but have recently lost some valuable slots to the bigger charities from Bishops Stortford. We are a not for profit chairity and have worked hard at reinventing our village hall due to covid. We have made many improvements so our attendees can feel warm and comfortable in their surrounds. With the food that has been coming to our hall we have been able to utilise some of the food into breakfasts, lunch, tea and snacks. This ensure that food waste goes out to a much wider community when there is enough to go round. All our Trustees are volunteers and we work virtually full time as unpaid volunteers to our community. We welcome all ages, families, and especially the elderly as Little Hadham is an ageing rural village with no amenities in our village other than a pub and our village hall. The transport is poor and many can't drive so we feel there is a reliance on what we can offer to our residents and neibouring Parishes and nearest town. Our aim is to try an bridget the gap for the food we have lost to other charities and hope that we may find a new source of food waste that will continue to provide food for our community on a weekly basis.

- Education/training - Children/young people - Provides services - Other charitable activities