Cost Of Living Emergency Fund has provided £560 of match funding
St Mark's and St Philip's free food markets
Cardiff, United Kingdom
Aim
Free food market every Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday, along with warm spaces with free tea and coffee.
Who are we?
Putting our religious beliefs into real-life action, volunteers at St Mark's Evangelical Anglican Church in Gabalfa, and St Philip's Tremorfa, Cardiff, collect food that's still in-date but past the point supermarkets would put it on sale, and pass it on to anyone that needs it - for free.
We provide a warm, welcoming place for everyone, and the chance for people to fill their fridges and cupboards with free food. Anyone can take any of the food, they don't need to be referred to the market or have a voucher.
At Christmas, we raised money to give gifts of toiletries, hot water bottles, biscuits and chocolates to all who visited the food markets. We also partnered with Tesco to give out free toys for the children whose families use the markets.
Marcus Nelson, the church's vicar, explains how the market first got started: "In the early days, right at the very beginning of the pandemic. Somebody gave us a little note saying there was no food at all in their house. It started from there, we started picking up food from different supermarkets."
"It slowly grew until we were picking up from 50 supermarkets a week and we were able to share much more widely than at the start. We’ve been running for almost three years which is hard to believe. We have between 50 and 60 people, some queueing from 6am. We open the doors around 8:30, watch a film, pray, chat, sing some songs and come and get the food."
How we’ll spend the money raised
We'll spend the money on "cupboard essentials" and toiletries. Donations will also contribute to the heating costs of the warm spaces we provide, and the free tea and coffee we provide.
This project successfully funded on 3rd October 2023