Aim: To build a food store and kitchen enabling us to continue to intercept, cook and provide meals to all, using food destined for landfill.
Plymouth’s Real Junk Food Project has been working since April 2016 as part of a national network of Real Junk Food projects across the UK.
Our mission is simple - to feed bellies, not bins!! We do this by working with local supermarkets, businesses, shops, food producers and farms - intercepting food that would otherwise be thrown away, reducing needless landfill and feeding hungry bellies with delicious food instead.
We need YOUR HELP to continue to grow what we do. Every pound you pledge to this campaign before 24th January 2017 will be match funded by Santander Bank. If you can’t support the campaign with a donation right now, please spread the word and share our campaign - your personal recommendation of our project can be worth as much as £20 a time.
What we’ll do with the money you contribute:
Our food brings people together. When people come together to eat, social isolation is reduced in our communities and friendships and support networks are built. The food we make is made from scratch and usually contains lots of fresh fruit and vegetables so is healthy and nutritious. Sometimes people pay for their meal with donations of money but sometimes they contribute their time or skills. We really value all types of payment and our helpers, volunteers and customers make the project what it is.
Since launching the crowdfund we have found a great premises and a walk in freezer. This is fantastic as with these resources we can increase the food we intercept and the meals we provide to people. There is still lots to do though, The kitchen space needs work and the freezer needs to be built!
Here are some examples of what your pledges will help to fund
Every penny raised from the campaign will go back into making Plymouth’s Real Junk Food Project more sustainable. During the eight months in which we have been up and running, our team of 25 volunteers have worked together to serve over 3000 meals to more than 2000 people and intercepted more than five tonnes of food. To continue this work, we urgently need to set up a new food storage facility and kitchen.
We have set an ambitious target of £10,000 but this isn’t all-or-nothing!! Every pound you pledge will go to the project, even if we don’t reach our grand total.
Here’s what we can achieve at each stage of our total
How else can you help?
Every pledge and contribution is valuable to our project, but we know that people don’t always have money to spare. If this is the case, there are lots of other ways that you can help us to continue to do great things in the community.
Our plans for 2017 & beyond:
We started with one event a week in Plymouth throughout May, June and July and now we have grown to three events a week at venues in Liskeard and Plymouth. To date we have held regular weekly community lunches in a scout hut and childrens centre, worked with youth centres and community cafes and pubs, local charity groups supporting families and children, rural church groups, refugee action groups, food festivals and sustainability and education events.
In 2017, we’ll be hosting lots more of our pop-up cafes in Plymouth at the Bread & Roses community pub, in Liskeard at the Scout Hut, and popping-up lots of other venues and event - stay in touch & see dates via our Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/TheRealJunkFoodProjectPlymouth/
With your help, we are also hoping to grow in terms of our scope and provision. In particular, we want to create more opportunities for unemployed people to learn new skills with us. To do this we need the infrastructure in place. The size of that expansion will depend on the amount of money we can raise through campaigns like this one, and through donations of kitchen equipment. Thank you for your time and consideration of the project. Please help us to continue our work - reducing unnecessary waste, building community in deprived areas, and feeding hungry bellies not bins!!