Always on
This project successfully funded on 14th September 2023, you can still support them with a donation.
The Sherwood Exchange
Nottingham, United Kingdom
Aim: Promoting sharing and equal access to food, clothing and other household goods. Reducing landfill, hardship and mental health decline.
The Sherwood Exchange started out during Covid-19 when food and household goods were harder to obtain in shops, then relaunched on April 6th 2024 and since then we've opened every Saturday to local people to provide them the opportunity to swap or simply take from a selection of food, clothing, toiletries and kids toys. Last year, we saw 603 visitors. We have exceeded this number of visitors since we reopened at the end of January this year, and demand continues to grow for our exchange, which, to some visitors has become a lifeline providing both the opportunity to access free food as well as social support, advice and signposting- which all our volunteers are trained to provide.
In addition to the food exchange, we have also been running a donation-based wellbeing session every Saturday- providing people with the opportunity to try wellbeing classes such as mindfulness, reiki, yoga and even the opportunity to talk with professionals providing energy sustainability and sustainable gardening advice. We want to give everybody the opportunity to reduce stress and prevent wellbeing decline by accessing useful therapies, skills, and knowledge to enhance their lives in these challenging economic times.
Additionally, we plan to roll out a wellbeing cafe in Autumn to ensure that our visitors not only get the opportunity to access free food, clothing, toiletries and kids toys but also get the opportunity to access warmth, a supportive chat with our volunteers and a wellbeing class every week too. This is also a priority of ours when a lot of our visitors, especially our older visitors, will have to choose between heating their homes or eating this winter.
Currently, as a community group run by passionate volunteers, we have few sources of funding and opportunities to write successful bids. However, our executive chair pays £76.00 out of her monthly wages to afford 80kg of food from FareShare Midlands. This food was initially split between 2 x 40kg fortnightly deliveries back in December 2024. Then, we soon realised that we needed 40kg weekly! Now, as visitor numbers have tripled since last year, we realise we need to afford 80kg of food weekly to ensure enough food for our visitors.
Furthermore, due to an increase in rent and the hours we are open, we also need to generate funds - a total of £ 1,330.00 to pay our rent for the rest of the year.
Our recently acquired fridge, too, needs a service to ensure it is safe and running efficiently over the summer season. After already paying a huge electricity bill, we are also learning that we will need to find around £600.00 to ensure it is serviced to a high standard and safe enough to continue running throughout the rest of the year.
We know this is a big ask, but we would really appreciate some help with funding our overheads. We know we are providing a good service and a lot more than a traditional food bank, as we are open to people from all walks of life and incomes and they are coming back every week. People who are impacted by worry about environmental destruction and rising costs of living. People- who are finding it hard to keep a smile on their face when faced with rising charges and costs, or worry about the state of the world we live in. People facing physical and emotional health challenges who are struggling to access helpful and preventative services which used to exist to manage their health and wellbeing. We're here for everyone, whether that be for food and goods, a friendly chat, or to provide a therapy, class or talk which might just empower them, relieve physical or emotional pain or make their lives a little bit easier.
All we want is to expand more and more on this so we can be preventing hardship, emotional health and health decline and keeping our community, and indeed people from Nottingham and Nottinghamshire who access us, access to good advice, support, food and other essentials.
Please do get behind us and keep us in mind whenever you have anything spare. Even if you've a small amount you'd like to donate, get in touch and we will be grateful for any amount you donate as every penny will be beneficial to us.
Follow us on social media and come down and see us on a Saturday. You will find us at the Place, 2a Melrose Street, Sherwood, NG5 2JP.
Thanks for reading and we hope you might even consider doing the same for your community too!
Your support is appreciated and will be helping so many people in Sherwood and Nottingham.