New Forest Aquaponics CIC
Southampton, UK
New Forest Aquaponics cic regenerative culture hub. We aim to help the understanding of connections with all parts of modern life, and our biosphere.
At our core is Aquaponics - the farming of fish and edible plants, as well as growing all types of food. To grow food we need good soil, and good people working together.
Good people need food, somewhere to meet and grow the food, and to feel valued.
We aim to set up a community owned farm in the New Forest. . We are keen to hear from anyone who could help us provide this resource for the Waterside area of the New Forest. I
Some of our active projects, please let us know if you would like to get involved - help is always appreciated
The Waterside Food Project - Feed people, Feed animals, compost. We firmly believe that no one should ever go hungry, no food should ever be wasted, and no food should ever go to landfill or incineration.
We work with smaller groups across the Waterside, providing resources to make sure they can get access to supermarket excess food, by collecting the food and recognising who can make best use of what's been collected. The groups we work with provide support for low income families and provide emergency food parcels, or cook for the homeless. Food that cannot be eaten, but can feed animals, goes to animal groups, and anything that is left after the people and animals are fed is composted, the compost will be used to help teach food growing.
Ecobricks UK - Teaches communities all about plastic, how and why we are in such a mess with it, providing methods of tracking plastic transition and how we can measure our positive impacts on our biosphere. This is done via workshops, online and in person. Support is offered as to how the ecobricks can be used to bring benefit to the community whilst sequestering the plastic out of the biosphere.
Waterside Clothes Swaps - We all need clothing, and with the cost of living increasing buying clothes, even from charity shops ,can be out of reach for some. Combine that with the damage the textile industry is doing to our world, helping with both issues is super important, we do this via waterside clothes swaps. We are in need of support - could you donate towards our hall hire costs, or donate clothes rails or even clothes?
The Virtually Real Forest - our project to create deep connections between children and trees. Again working with Blackwell Bushcraft we run workshops on trees and their importance to our biosphere. Each child is able to take a tree home to grow in a pot becoming a guardian of that tree. The tree is registered with The Virtually Real Forest, its journey can be followed, and support in caring for the tree can be given to the guardian of the tree. The aim of the scheme is to create more understanding of trees, and how they grow. More details are on the blog section of our website. We are looking for funding to provide the workshops to community groups and schools.
Lifeafterhummus Community Benefit Society
London, UK
We run a surplus foodbank in Somers Town in the borough of Camden in London. All thanks to 50 local volunteers who help us to support 80 local households, 11 hostels, 1 after-school club and 1 church group. We are supporting just over 125 children now living in poverty. We do this by collecting surplus from 45 local stores every week and redistributing them in a timely manner all thanks to each volunteer commiting to a regular shift weekly/ alternate weeks. Collections are made by bicycle using hitch on/off trailers, by foot using hand carts and some volunteers use their cars for those big collections and drop-offs to big hostels. We also operate a 'Room of thing's where local households that we support can take anything they need from. Items are donated by local businesses and people. There isn't much we can't find a home for. In our small courtyard we also have a surplus cart where people passing by can take what they need. This is about supporting local people whilst also being a part of a circular reuse mode. Our volunteers support us with so much more, from helping local residents with their CVs, mentoring, sewing surplus food bags from textile waste, running a monthly free clothing swap and more. Our project is person centred, each volunteer has something meaningful to offer a local person; this is where community happens. We are just a team of 2 and are BAME-Led.
Our work with Neighbourly is a key part to be able to support local people. You can find out more about the impact your support has on our beneficiaries on our website and you can visually see what our operation looks like on our instagram. We always need volunteers.
Community Needs Foundation - Foodbank
London, UK
Over the past eight years, Community Needs Foundation (CNF) has worked very hard to build relationships with some of the most deprived and underprivileged individuals in Royal Borough of Greenwich. We operate our foodbank from a community venue in Abbey Wood, South East London, where we sort, and distribute food donations and essential household items to individuals and families in need which includes; family with children, older adults, unemployment/low income, No Recourse to Public Funds.
Our service provides a safe and welcoming environment for service users to access support and advice.
As a community foodbank, our greatest need is sustainable funding to enable us to continue serving our growing community effectively.
We are seeking support to help cover:
Core organisational running costs, including rent, utilities, insurance, equipment, and essential operational expenses.
Staff salaries, ensuring we can retain experienced staff to coordinate our services, support volunteers, manage referrals, and provide consistent assistance to those in need.
Programme funding to expand and sustain our community initiatives, including emergency food provision, culturally appropriate food packages, our Coffee Chat for Over 60s, cookery and healthy eating sessions, and other health and wellbeing activities.
Continued food donations, including fresh, frozen, ambient, and culturally appropriate food, to ensure we can provide nutritious food parcels and respond to increasing demand throughout the year.
Food and essential supplies, to meet increasing demand from individuals and families experiencing food insecurity.
Volunteer recruitment and training, helping us maintain a strong volunteer workforce to deliver our services safely and effectively.
With increasing demand for our services and rising operating costs, long-term funding is essential to ensure we can continue supporting vulnerable individuals and families while responding to the changing needs of our local community.
