We will be rocking up in local neighbourhoods and distributing FREE bags of groceries, prepared soups and meals, toiletries, personal hygiene items, essential cleaning products and PPE . So far we've redistributed 260 tons of food back into the Sunderland Community, saving it from landfill in the process but now with even more support from supermarkets in the run up to Xmas we have a huge amount of food which has to be distributed in our local area, continuing to work alongside Social Chef who will be transforming a portion of this food into meals. A van would take us right into the heart of our local neighbourhoods, to distribute food and essential items to local residents, saving local families travel costs and sometimes without the need of a venue we will hand out items straight from the van! We can signpost residents to other organisations and support services whilst we are on the road and attend even more park events and festivals in our campaign to raise awareness of landfill.

What we'll deliver:

• Bags of groceries to Southwick and St Peters wards over a 6 month period
• 40% of our food allocation from Fareshare Northeast to Pennywell each week for 48 weeks.
• Personal hygiene items from Inkind Direct into Ryhope
• FREE PPE to Redhouse, Southwick, St Peters north
• FREE PPE to Ryhope, Hendon and Farringdon south

Why it's a great idea:

The greatest benefit is we can now our outreach work in all areas of Sunderland and beyond!! at present we use 3 vehicles to get somewhere, this would free up our volunteers to do other jobs. Our next aim in the coming year is to teach local schoolchildren the importance of reducing food waste by delivering workshops in local schools. We foresee all members of the Sunderland Community to have a positive experience of the Outreach Van.

Steps to get it done:

• purchasing a vehicle

We took part in 3 local community park events last year but so far this year Covid has overshadowed our plans but we do aim to get back on track in 2021 with more park/community events