Community Resilience Team supporting Emergency Food Hubs
Over the course of the pandemic, the Community Resilience Team has been supporting all organisations offering emergency food across the city, particularly the nine social supermarkets, six of which are brand new and set up with help from the team.
Working with some amazing charities they have supported them with developing membership packs, funding applications, introduced food suppliers and linked them with local developers.
The team formed a Community Food Network which all organisations that are operational and providing an emergency food response are involved in. They have ensured that all of the social supermarkets are now operating from the same model, so no matter which social supermarket people attend they will get the same service. A Community Food Hub WhatsApp group has also been put in place, which the hubs use to share food items so no waste and to request help. All of this work has led to an amazing and efficient voluntary and community resource, which is a credit to the many volunteers and community organisations within.
To help each of these food hubs/social supermarkets to become more sustainable the team have designed and supported the creation of a much-needed Local Giving donation page. Funds received will be used to bulk purchase food and distribute across the nine social supermarkets and enable them to continue to run.
Since March the team have been applying for funds to enable the charities to employ staff, purchase equipment and storage facilities, food stocks and other essentials the organisations have identified as being required to get them operational.
Just over 50 applications have been completed by the Community Resilience Team supporting the voluntary sector organisations. Funding amounts since March total over £668,000. To date £390,745 has been successfully been awarded.
The latest food hub to be supported by the team is run by Carriers of Hope and is called The World Food Hub offering culturally diverse foods for BME groups and has been operational for only two weeks in Hillfields and already feeding 120 people including children.
The team also supports developers working in the city to fulfil their community obligations by matchmaking them with community organisations and causes. The following developers have been worked supported and enabled to be donate in the following different ways;
- Buckingham Group donated a fantastic £600 to Foleshill Community Centre for additional security after they were broken into and food supplies and more stolen, as well as an additional £1250 towards supporting the Feeding Coventry summer holiday breakfast club. More recently, they had agreed to raise donations for the Local Giving page and are doing a raffle for their employees with all money going towards the food network.
- Interclass supported Canley food Hub with £700 worth of additional building security and their staff to fit this.
- Eurovia and Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service both provided volunteers to support with the packing and delivering of the Summer Holiday Breakfast packs for children on free school meals.
- The Team also contacted Peugeot to see if they could offer support to the network and negotiated a brand new £16,000 van for £8000 that the Moat House Community Trust had applied for and been awarded funds for.