Feeding our communities

All over the country demand for foodbanks is increasing.  GGT has teamed up with Gloucester Services, the national FareShare food project, local allotment holders, GL Communities and other partners to create a new free food project.

Five days a week unsold food is collected and made available at locations connected to a community café or community food cupboard at its site. The donated food also supports the community cafés and is a great way to reduce food waste in business. 

       What can you do?

• If you or anyone you know is struggling to put food on the table, contact one of our community partners who are always there to help and get you the right advice.
• Do you have an allotment or grow more fruit or veg than you can eat? Contact a foodbank or one of our partners who can put it to good use in the community!
• Foodbanks are a lifeline for many families - give an item or two when you see them collecting in the supermarkets.
• Beat food waste by inviting neighbours or friends around for a meal, especially anyone who might be struggling.

Redwell Restock

On Thursdays, our community partner Together In Matson receives produce from Gloucester Services, Tesco and Morrisons, which volunteers and staff cook together and make meals that they then freeze ready for community members to collect. Bread, fruit and vegetables are always available for people
to take home to use themselves. Called the Redwell Re-stock, this service helps people restock their fridges and supplies them with food they may not otherwise be able to afford. Over the last year the demand for this service has risen.

Food, fun and pea soup

Providing food and fun, is a top priority for Play Gloucestershire. “Feeling isolated, being sedentary and missing out on nutritious meals  is not good for childhood wellbeing which is why we are so committed to our ‘food and fun’ approach in the low income communities we support” said Play Ranger Ben.

“In winter, our fire pit always comes out and we do toast and jam or marmite, or we make soup in the holidays. There’s a legendary pea soup; even kids that don’t like peas love it. We also try to make nutritious but easy things they can try at home with their families.”

Monday is the Munchday

Another of our community partners All Pulling Together (APT) in Stonehouse run the Neighbourly Food Project, which also makes food collections from local supermarkets available to residents, uploading photos of deliveries to Facebook.  Volunteers from APT are also available to talk to people about any additional support they might need.  They also run a 'Munchday' every Monday when anyone can call in for a hot meal and a drink for a donation of £1.  

Also on a Monday, our community partner Fair Shares Gloucestershire runs a lunch club at Chequers Bridge Community Centre. Participants can help with the preparation and cooking, or set the table or wash up - there's a role to make everyone feel involved.

Playing with food

“During our school holiday play sessions we provide at least three free lunches a week for all of our playground visitors and on some days we feed more than 60 people!" said Dawn, Project Manager at our newest community partner The Venture: White City.

We like to encourage our children and young people to experiment with food, trying new tastes and textures, but we also do lots of training and skills development so that they are equipped to cook simple meals. These are great life skills for them to have. Food is also used for creative purposes. We use it to make food masterpieces like pizza faces that can then be cooked and eaten and we turn potatoes and carrots into people! This helps us to reduce waste as food that we cannot cook is used for art."