Supporting Our Community & Saving The Planet

Aim

To improve our service, make zero-waste shopping more accessible and provide employment opportunities for disadvantaged individuals

The Background

Seed1 is a community-focused refill shop in Marlow that was established 2 years ago in order to make it affordable and accessible for those in our community to buy dried foods, cleaning products and toiletries without single-use plastic packaging. 

Seed1 is a not-for-profit community interest company. This means that the business functions just like many other small businesses with overheads and running costs to pay but any profits that the shop makes, instead of going to the company directors, instead provide employment, training, accommodation and support for the vulnerable individuals such as those facing homelessness, women and families fleeing domestic violence and refugees who have been placed into our community.

The Pandemic

For many businesses, the recent Covid pandemic has been devastating and Seed1 is no exception. Throughout the various lockdowns, Seed1 worked tirelessly with an army of volunteers, to provide emergency food parcels for families in Marlow who could not afford to buy fresh fruit and vegetables for their children.

We did this at cost, not wanting to profit from the pandemic or to waste any of the precious council funding that had been made available, but because we care about our community and simply wanted to help those in need.

We also switched up our business model and offered both home deliveries to residents who were unable to get out due to shielding or who couldn’t get supermarket delivery slots and a click and collect service, so that we could keep getting essential supplies out to everyone safely.

Despite this, the pandemic resulted in our turnover dropping by almost 90%. We know it’s been a really tough time for everyone, and many of our customers switched to shopping online with the big supermarkets and we get it – we all needed to make our lives as simple as possible – it has been an exhausting 18 months!

Since the end of the most recent lockdown however, we have seen a slow but steady increase in business, as some customers returned to us, but it hasn’t been enough, and having come out of the pandemic in an already fragile position, we are now in real danger of closing, so we are looking to innovate and expand to meet the demands of a new era.

The Plan

In order to survive (and thrive!) we know we need to make shopping with us more accessible. That's why we want to:

• Purchase a re-furbished milk float to enable us to make carbon-neutral deliveries to local residents who aren't able to reach us in store for health or mobility reasons
• Employ staff members to allow us to open 7 days a week and to increase our capacity for both retail and B2B trade
• Streamline our online shopping experience

This all requires funding, which due to the pandemic, we no longer have the reserves to cover, so we are asking for your help, and what's more, each donation made to this campaign will be match-funded by Aviva up to £50, so even if you can only manage £10, that's already doubled when you donate here.

The Charity

We know that given the opportunity to put the above plans into action, we will become financially stable in the coming months and will start to see our profits increasing once again. We therefore also plan to establish our charity that will become the formal mechanism for utilising the money we raise through the businesses to support those in need.

The charity will provide accommodation, training, employment and support for vulnerable members of our community such as those facing homelessness, fleeing domestic violence, experiencing mental health difficulties or refugees who have been re-settled locally.

Although we have been able to provide some of this support through Seed1 thus far, having the charity established will allow us to also apply for external funding and sponsorship, which combined with the money we raise through Seed1 will allow us to help many more people re-build their lives.

The Campaign

Thank you for looking at our campaign and considering a donation. 

We know things have been difficult for a lot of us recently so we know not everyone can contribute financially, so if that's you, please do consider sharing this instead.

We are truly grateful for all the support and love we have received thus far and are honoured to have been able to pay that forward in helping those in our community who haves desperately needed support and look forward to many more years working together to help protect our planet and the beautiful people who inhabit it!

This project successfully funded on 7th December 2021