West Somerset Food Cupboard Newsletter, February 2022

Dear friends and supporters of the West Somerset Food Cupboard,

We hope that 2022 is already proving to be a good year for you. 

 We’ve had a good start to the year here at the WSFC with lots going on. We’ll try to fill you in but do watch this space over the next few months…

Feb. 2022 items most needed:

• Small bottles squash
• Juice (1l & individual)
• Savoury biscuits/snacks
• Hot chocolate
• Tinned vegetables

87 food parcels have been distributed during January, mostly through our partner agencies who are busy helping recipients work through a wide range of challenges that mean that money is tight at the moment. 

We are already seeing the impact of the rising cost of household energy bills, fuel and food, so the kindness and generosity of all our donors, collection point providers and volunteers is greatly appreciated. Thank you for the part that you play.

While the need continues the team at the WSFC are committed to continuing to facilitate the provision of emergency food. But we want to do more to make the need less. So we are working on a project which will enable local people to join a membership scheme that will give them longer-term access to very low cost fresh, chilled and non-perishable supermarket surplus food which is well within it’s ‘use by’ date and will prevent good food from going to waste. There is a lot of work going on behind the scenes to make this happen so please bear with us. We promise to bring you further updates soon!

To make sure we are in the strongest position to support the new project as well as continuing the vital work of the Food Cupboard which has been going on since 2007, we are working with the Charity Commission, and with support from SPARK (who provide voluntary sector advice in Somerset), to establish a new charity – again there’s a lot of work going on to make this happen, but be assured that those who need emergency food will continue to receive it; that won’t change. 

We’ve been delighted to welcome new volunteers and prospective trustees to the team following a recent information event about all of the above. If you’d like to find out more about how you could get involved please let us know. And if you know a great treasurer who is looking for a new and inspiring project to support and might consider joining our new trustee board in this role, please introduce us 😊.

At the same time we are looking forward to launching our shiny new website in the near future thanks to another generous donor.

With thanks and very good wishes for a happy and healthy 2022,

From Ali and the Food Cupboard team