PaddingtonNow Business Improvement District Ltd

Jobcare is a for-purpose organisation whose mission is to help jobseekers find and keep satisfying employment. At Jobcare we believe that working matters. Working brings income, brings structure to the day, brings physical, mental, emotional, and indeed for some, spiritual satisfaction. Working positively impacts family life, friends, neighbours and community acquaintances. Working contributes financially to the overall economy. Working matters. Jobcare has for the past 30 years been serving the needs of unemployed people in Dublin’s City Centre, and now across all the island as well. From a starting point in 1994 of 1 full-time and 6 staff on work programmes, the charity has grown to 12 full-time staff and 55 staff on work programmes – (a work programme is a combination of work experience and training for long-term unemployed people). Currently, Jobcare provides 20 courses in job-seeking skills per year to over 1000 people. Our resource and advice centre caters for over 9,000 visits per year. We also provide wrap-around supports such as computer courses for jobseekers needing to upskill in this area. Major accomplishments of Jobcare include: 1. Development and establishment of the ‘Trasna’ Programme for ex-offenders in 2008. Since then 108 ex-offenders have participated in the programme. Of these 56% have progressed to employment or further education. The reoffending rate for Trasna is 9% compared with the National average of 45%. Paul Mooney, Jobcare’s Chief Executive and Co-founder was twice an awardee of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland in recognition of his pioneering work to address this pressing societal issue. 2. In late 2010, recognising the unprecedented increase in unemployment among professionals and graduates due to the economic crisis, Jobcare developed a new programme of support targeted at this new group of unemployed who were being left behind. In its first twenty programmes "Jobnet" provided support for over 900 professionals and graduates with 65% retraining or regaining employment (62% in employment). Peter Johnson, Director of the Jobnet Programme, received an award from Social Entrepreneurs Ireland in 2013 for the transformative impact of this initiative for jobseeking professionals. We are very grateful to the many companies, large and small, that support Jobcare in a practical or financial way. If you believe that ‘working matters’, we invite you to partner with us in helping unemployed people, either directly by hiring them, or indirectly by sharing talent, technology and resources with Jobcare. For example, we benefit from surplus food donations from Marks and Spencer. These enable us to provide snacks and lunch for our unemployed transitional work programme participants and snacks for our unemployed clients. Whether having lunch around a table or enjoying a coffee break together, providing food and building community are both really valuable for our unemployed people.

“We are fighting food waste and preventing residual food from going to landfill. The residual food is repurposed to ensure no one goes hungry”. We have a retail shop in the centre of High Wycombe. The shop is open 6 days a week. We have a warehouse on the first floor where we can sort and distribute food. This allows us to both run a shop feeding those in need and supply our partner organisations. We are collecting from leading major supermarkets within a 15-mile radius of High Wycombe. We also receive direct deliveries from manufacturers and warehouses. We are also a member of the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) which represents independent food banks and distributors across the UK. Our Food Hub model allows us to manage not only residual food but also ambient, chilled, and frozen food. The fact we have both a retail and wholesale distribution ability has been identified by Fare share as one of a few operations in SE England with this capability. Who do we supply? WFH supply products to people unable to access or buy food, those that cannot get Government aid or are unable to survive on the Government’s benefit payments, those who are now suffering from loss of jobs and the self-employed who cannot get benefits, those who cannot access the traditional referral foodbanks. The range of people coming to us for help is growing weekly. Considering what is happening nationally the need for our food and services will continue to grow. We have partnered with other charities and groups and we are supplying residual product to food distribution organisations across Bucks. We are also piloting supplying food to partner organisations who are using the ingredients in hot meals and school food packs. Current scale of operation We have volunteers out each day and evenings collecting residual food. We currently collect more than 250 crates a week from leading supermarkets, warehouses, and retail shops. Food that would otherwise go to landfill. We have a retail food hub open 6 days a week for 3 hours each day We are directly feeding Circa 500 people each week through our retail food hub and partners. In addition, we offer free food outside of the hub . Our wholesale operation is supplying both food parcels and crates of food to our partners. We are also now being asked to supply food to be used in the preparation of cooked meals. Our wholesale operation is growing each week as more organisations draw on our services Funding streams We receive no statutory finding from govt of Council. We rely on donations from public and by asking for a donation from users of our retail hub. We also supply food free to the charities and organisations who are taking food from us each week.

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.