Boost our mission this Christmas! Donate to fuel our rescue van, chill our food, and fight food waste. Your gift saves food and the planet!
by Sarah Renfrey in Littlehampton, West Sussex, United Kingdom
We would love to upgrade and replace some of our equipment, such as wireless dataloggers for our fridges and freezers, labelling equipment, sack trucks and flat bed trucks. We also would like to get more cooking equipment for our LA Rescued Food Cafe.
Our Refrigerated Van - Wendy (the waste food wagon)
Our Van, 'Wendy' Cost us nearly £7, 500 last year to run.
Insurance £1,168.20 (likely to be a significatn increase this year)
£320 - 12 months Tax
£3,174.59 on repairs and van hire to cover the van when it was off the road, and MOT, and most of the labour was free and covered in-kind by volunteers
£2,781.70 Fuel
Please help us keep our van on the road, it is almost used daily to rescue food, take equipment to events and run our Littlehampton Fridge-On-Tour!
Our hard-working Volunteers
We also need to support our volunteers by continuing to offer petrol expenses. With the rising costs of fuel and keeping their cars out and about collecting from over 100 different supermarkets and local businesses.
Rising cost of electricity
We need money to keep our 18 fridges and freezers going. Whilst we have generously had the cost of electricity (and gas for heating) funded by St James the Great Church Hall since we moved in May 2020 (and are so grateful for this gift) with increasing bills we need to start contributing. Fuel bills have been >£2000 per year and will only have increased hugely in recent times.
Cost of Living Crisis
We rescued 18 tonnes of food over the two week Festive Period last year. This helped support so many of our community over a tricky time, which arguably will be worse for many this year. Some were overjoyed to know they would have a good meal after volunteers gave up their Christmas Eve to work late into the evening. I personally recall a family who came one year to our extra Boxing Day session who's family had not been able to provide the typical Christmas meal that year, and were so pleased and excited to be able to rescue a turkey and all the trimmings to enjoy together.
We will be holding an Extra Christmas Eve session to collect and redistribute surplus to the community before Christmas.
Merry Christmas, and thank you so much for all your support!