A new home for LOVE Food CIC

WHO WE ARE:

LOVE Food CIC is a community-based organisation dedicated to increasing access to, and promoting the benefits of, Local, Organic, Vegan, Ethical food for animals, health and the environment.  

At LOVE Food CIC, we believe that access to healthy, sustainable, and ethical food is a basic human right. Our mission is to create a food system that is fair, just, and nourishing for all members of our community. Our focus is on making healthy and sustainable eating accessible for everyone, regardless of budget and cooking skills. 

We organise food activities to:

• bring the local community together
• help people eat better
• address food poverty
• reduce food waste

We have been running for 2.5 years and now have a paid part-time coordinator, a team of over 20 volunteers, and 5 freelance cookery tutors. Over the past year we have organised over 50 events, which have directly benefited over 500 people. We’re hoping to establish our new premises in St Thomas, Exeter.

WHAT WE DO:

Our activities include:

• cookery sessions
• a community fridge
• lunch clubs
• foraging walks
• organic veg buying groups
• food celebration events
• an apple juicing project
• recipe booklets

In just the last year we've organised: regular monthly lunch clubs in Ide and St Thomas; Alphington Apple Day; Walk & Cook foraging sessions all over Exeter; Cooking for Type 2 Diabetes, a Vegan Ethiopian Masterclass, and other cooking sessions at Exeter Community Centre; Polish Pierogi classes in St Thomas; cooking with seasonal, organic veg at Ide Village Hall and Park Life Heavitree Hub, which led to the setting up of Ide Food Buying Group; a series of budget cooking sessions at the Beacon and Newcourt Community Centres, as well as setting up our community fridge and creating a new recipe booklet. 

All of LOVE Food CIC's activities focus on healthy, easy, affordable, tasty vegan food. Eating plant-based not only offers a wide range of health benefits, but can also help the environment and reduce our carbon footprint.

Some of the organisations we have run cooking sessions for include:

• Wellbeing Exeter
• CoLab Women's Project
• Bournemouth Churches Housing Association
• RD&E Hospital
• Barnfield Surgery
• Exeter University Students Guild
• Plant Based Health Professionals
• St Thomas Community Garden
• Respect Festival
• YMCA
• Space
• Devon Food Rescue Project
• St Thomas Library.

Our community fridge gets regular food donations from Exeter Food Action, Cowick St Co-op, Grocer on the Green, St Thomas Community Garden, Shillingford Organics, households, and allotments, and the food is available for anyone to take for free. We also run free cooking sessions with surplus produce from the fridge. We have recently had to move the fridge, as St Thomas Library left their premises and so St Thomas Parish Church very kindly offered to host the fridge on a temporary basis, but we still need to find a permanent new home.

WHY WE NEED FUNDING:

We are now seeking funding, so we can set up a new St Thomas Community Food Hub to host the community fridge and run our cooking sessions, lunch clubs and other food activities. We have found a suitable property in St Thomas, and have already received £5000 towards the rent from Hubbub. We need extra funding to fit a new kitchen, buy other necessary equipment, furniture and signage, and cover project costs, including salaries.

Having our own premises will make a huge difference to how we operate and is essential to helping us to grow and become more sustainable as an organisation. Whilst we love working in partnership with other community organisations, at the moment we have to spend a lot of time and effort hiring venues, publicising our sessions in different areas, and transporting food and equipment around Exeter (often by bus!). Most community centres get very booked up, so it's often hard to find space when we need it and the kitchens are not always that well equipped, so we can't cook all the dishes we would like.

If we had our own premises, we could: 

• expand our community food activities and run regular weekly cooking sessions, community lunches, as well as other workshops and meals.
• accept more free food donations and ensure all surplus food gets cooked, if necessary, and made into healthy lunches & ready meals that people can get from the fridge.
• cater for local events from our own kitchen, to generate more income.
• offer space to other groups to rent out e.g. for other food activities, arts & crafts, health & wellbeing, environmental or other community projects.
• act as a welcoming community space for local people to help reduce social isolation.
• store all our equipment and resources in one place, as well as the apple juice we make every autumn, and other donations we're offered e.g. free kitchen equipment and cook books.
• take on more volunteers who will be involved in our different activities, and will benefit by gaining new skills, work experience, and meeting new people.

St Thomas is lacking community facilities, especially with the recent loss of some buildings, and the venues we do have are already fully booked a lot of the time. So we hope that LOVE Food's premises can act as both a community food hub and social space for local people.

We're very happy to be receiving match funding from Aviva who will match every pledge up to £250, so if you pledge £5 we will receive £10, and if you pledge £50 we will receive £100. We will also receive match funding from Sovereign Housing if we reach our fundraising target. So, please support us, every pledge makes a difference in achieving our goal!