Breedon

Second Helpings Stamford is a community food redistribution charity that tackles food waste while supporting people experiencing food insecurity and financial hardship across Stamford and the surrounding area. We collect surplus food from supermarkets, manufacturers and local businesses, ensuring good food is not wasted but instead reaches those who need it most. Through our pantry, community café, food support programmes and partnerships with local organisations, we help individuals and families access affordable food, reduce social isolation and improve wellbeing. We also provide volunteering opportunities that help people build confidence, skills and connections within their community. The support we need most is access to surplus food, which enables us to continue meeting increasing demand and supporting more people. We also welcome volunteers to help with food collection, sorting, distribution and community activities

Inependent food banks, community fridges, social supermarket. We are a not for profit organisation that has been running since 2012. Currently we distribute over 40 tonnes of food a month to thousands of families. In particular the people benefiting are mostly in receipt of universal credit and D.L.A, or are currently to embarrassed to use a food bank, and ours has choice and dignity where our clients can choose what they need. Primarily we advertise as a climate change project that helps to reduce poverty by supplying food weekly in multiple areas, this reduces the stigma of use. This is to reduce food waste, help save the planet, and get children involved in organising and planning food shares. We work closely with the home educated community and many other zero waste community groups. Lots of our volunteers have long term mental health issues or are on benefits, and we are a lifeline to them both for food and the community. We have been doing humanitarian aid work in the local community and internationally for 7 years. We sent out 180 tonnes of aid in 2016/2017 to various organisations and supported many local families. In September 2019 we started The Food Share Project. A project covering Telford, Shropshire, West Midland and into Wales, to reduce food waste form the food industry, mainly supermarkets & wholesalers, and safely transport and distribute the food to the local communities via food banks. We evolved fast. When the Covid19 pandemic hit the UK and we went into lockdown in March 2020, the demand for our services of our independant foodbank increased hugely. We opened a discout pallet supermarket in September 2020 which enabled us to rescue and sell more food. The funds from our supermarket enable us to further support our independant foodbank. More recently we have reacted to the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. To date, we have sent out 1000 pallets of aid on over 23 lorries to Poland. This has been distributed, via our partners on the ground, to the refugees in Poland and also into Ukraine itself. We run community stores nationwide.

Food and Beverage Buggies (FABB) was a group dedicated to taking a hot 2 course meal, drinks, and sandwich bags for the next day out to the Homeless in Norwich, finding them in their doorways, cemeteries, wherever they were. This supplemented the existing work being done by 4 soup kitchen groups at the Haymarket, but filled a very vital mid-week need. Our buggies were filled with food, drinks, warm clothing, boots, sleeping bags etc, and we were out every Thursday, 52 weeks a year, from 7-9pm. During Covid FABB of necessity diversified to meet a growing need in schools and local families, where Covid had taken it's toll. Many families with young children were struggling to make ends meet, often due to job losses and furloughed reduced wages. School age children were going into schools hungry and not able to concentrate fully on lessons. Food poverty and food insecurity was rife, and FABB worked with 2 local schools and 15+ families to take food deliveries into schools to distribute, and taking essential food parcels to the families. This was much needed and appreciated, and we'll carry on as long as there is a hungry child or adult in our community. As the rules were reduced and the country went back to 'normal' FABB found that food poverty was still rife and we concentrated our efforts to help families in distress and hostel residents fighting their pathway back to a home of their own. Food parcels are delivered weekly to families for as long as they are needed, by the same volunteer to build trust. We deliver to doorsteps as most families have no car to collect, and many are housebound. We now deliver weekly to up to 60 families. We cook for a ladies hostel of 31 residents several times a week. Regular food times, combined with good nutrition show a marked improvement in social, mental and physical wellbeing.