St Mark's free food market

Aim

Free food market every Tuesday and Saturday, along with warm spaces with free tea and coffee and sandwiches.

Who are we?

Putting our religious beliefs into real-life action, volunteers at St Mark's Evangelical Anglican Church in Gabalfa, 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.

Through what the church calls the "Free Market," every Tuesday and Saturday (and on Sundays at the sister congregation of St Philip's), dozens of people queue up outside to browse through the food. The atmosphere is friendly and non-judgemental and there's always a cup of tea on offer.

Before the 'market' is opened up, there's a session called Fresh Start, where people can sit and watch a video about Christian faith, hear a Bible reading and sing along to a hymn - but, as our vicar Marcus Nelson says, it's "no strings attached," with plenty of Muslim and non-religious people dropping by without having to attend Fresh Start.

Community impact

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."

"In practical terms it’s essential for some people but there’s this feeling many people have that life is falling apart - people in real difficulty who are struggling in all different ways. But they’re coming into a community of love, acceptance, friendship in which there’s forgiveness for things that have gone wrong in the past and there’s a reason to get out of bed today and something to look forward to tomorrow with Jesus Christ as part of the church."

However, there really is no fine print, no ulterior motive when it comes to faith - people are welcome to come in without engaging with the religious aspect, because the doors are open to everyone.  

Why are we crowdfunding?

As well as the free food collected from supermarkets, we also buy "cupboard essentials" for anyone who needs them. These include tea and coffee, sugar, rice, pasta, tins and toiletries. We need to make sure we have enough money to keep providing these, as so many people would have to go without otherwise.

With the cost of energy bills rising, we also need to ensure we can keep paying the heating bills so we can keep offering these warm spaces.

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 22nd April 2023