Community @NE66 has used a grant of £4,732 from the Newcastle Building Society Community Fund at the Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland to help reduce food waste and help families facing food insecurity.
Based in Alnwick Community Centre, in Northumberland, Community @NE66 runs a range of youth development projects to promote healthy relationships, including a parent and toddler group, a youth café, health and well-being sessions, holiday activity provision, and parental support services.
The charity is also working with a number of local supermarkets to help make fresh food, which might otherwise end up being thrown away, available to families who could use it.
The project primarily focuses on families living in the Clayport ward in Alnwick, but is available to anyone living across north Northumberland, and helps around 250 people every week.
Community @NE66 needs to raise around £160,000 every year to meet its running costs, with the majority of this coming from grants and donations. The £4,732 grant was used to cover the food project’s running costs, which includes making deliveries to families with additional needs and topping up supplies.
Hannah Moeini, project manager at Community @NE66, says: “Our work during and after the pandemic made it clear just how much fresh food was being disposed of by supermarkets that would be welcomed by people living in our community, so we set about finding ways to ensure it wasn’t wasted.
“The project’s impact has been two-fold, with the environmental benefit of reducing food waste adding to the reduction of food insecurity in an area that is recognised as having significant levels of deprivation.
“We wouldn’t be able to be delivering what’s proving to be a highly valued and effective project without Newcastle Building Society’s support and we’re really grateful for their continuing backing for our community work.”
Download the press release (PDF, 111kB).
Image caption: L-R David Charlton, our Head of Operations, and Greg Brown, our Alnwick Branch Manager, with members of Community @NE66.
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