West Faversham Community Centre started to collect waste food from a few local supermarkets about 3 years ago and we would just pop in in our corridors for people to take. Through doing this we realised how much perfectly good food is wasted everyday by supermarkets and food warehouses, we also saw how grateful people were for the chance to pick up a few bits of free food and how many people told us they were struggling with the cost of living and found that our free food really helped them. So we decided to officially install a community fridge and sharing area, we bought a van and recruited some volunteers and increased our collections.
We now collect from around 15 different organisations every day and all the food is taken and used by the community. We have reduced waste, helped the environment and we are supporting people who are struggling with the cost of living.
It costs a lot of money to keep the operation going on a daily basis due to the cost of the van, the power to refrigerate and freeze the food, the cleaning, the restocking, recycling the carboard and packaging the food comes in in and the cost of providing staff to support our service users and manage the daily admin of the fridge.
Any money raised will ensure we are able to continue to run the fridge, hopefully expand and save more food and help more people.