FareShare South West, the charity redistributing surplus food to tackle food poverty, has been granted £30,000 in funding by Bath’s St John’s Foundation to launch an innovative scheme targeting child hunger in Bath and North East Somerset.
The move follows a pilot project by FareShare South West last year when it held breakfast clubs and holiday projects at a number of schools, including St Martin’s Garden in Odd Down and Twerton Infant School. 
The schools benefited from good quality, in-date surplus food that would otherwise have gone to waste.
The new funding from St John’s will expand the pilot project and involve other charities across the region.
FareShare South West, part of the national FareShare charity and the largest organisation of its kind in the region, operates a warehouse in Bristol, where it has run a similar project, successfully building a community of around 250 charities and organisations that benefit from the redistribution of this surplus food.
FareShare South West CEO Julian Mines said: “Expanding our reach further into Bath and North East Somerset is in direct response to the rise in child hunger across the region.
“After a successful pilot project, and with demonstrated impact on some of the most vulnerable in Bath and North East Somerset, we’re delighted that St John’s Foundation has granted us the funds to make the first official year of the project possible.”
FareShare South West has set up regular deliveries to school breakfast clubs and community centres, including a ‘food pantry’ with partners the Bath-based food charity Mercy in Action. This allows families to shop for a range of fresh and ambient surplus food as they would in a supermarket but at a fraction of the cost.
By building a coalition of charities and settings which encounter and support children and families, more families will have access to food.
“By doing this, we hope fewer children with drop through the net and experience child hunger,” added Julian.
“We take away the barrier to accessing food for the charities – a factor that may be preventing them from engaging fully with their target end users – by maintaining a very small membership fee for weekly deliveries of surplus food, making it a sustainable option for them.
“We believe that food is a starting point for supporting children and their families who may be struggling, and current partner charities and settings provide vital wraparound services to tackle other contributing issues.”
FareShare South West saves more than 500 tonnes of good surplus food a year from across the food supply chain and redistributes it to 250-plus schools, charities and community groups.
These charities provide meals as part of their services to people in need – such as children’s breakfast clubs, day clubs for older people, domestic violence refuges, homeless shelters and drug and alcohol rehab units. In 2018/19 it provided enough food for more than 960,000 meals.
St John’s, Bath’s oldest charity, provides financial assistance and practical support to individuals and charitable organisations across Bath and North East Somerset through its foundation.
For more information visit www.faresharesouthwest.org.uk and stjohnsbath.org.uk
