Normally, we just take delivery of surplus food in our yard, but last week, we were thrilled to receive 60 large fridges. The appliances were donated by Aldi for use by our community food members. The fridges were just a fraction of over 300 looking for new homes after the closure of a warehouse.
As we don’t like to see things going to waste, we reached out to our Community Food Members (CFMs) to see who could make use of them to boost their food offerings. Our CFMs have told us in the past that it can be difficult to get funding to buy equipment like fridges, so this donation was particularly welcome.
Community Support
The chillers we received are destined for organisations who take surplus in-date, quality food from our FareShare Greater Manchester operation and in turn, they use it to help people in the wider community to access the food as just one means of support. The food saves the people and organisations money because it is provided very cheaply by us.
These chillers will add capacity to the beneficiary groups so they can take more available produce. The organisations can, through the savings the food offers, provide more of what they do best, such as the additional support services around debt management, housing and benefits advice, as well as various methods of pastoral and social care including counselling and family support.
Teamwork
Our corporate partner, GXO stepped in to collect the fridges from Aldi and bring them to our Openshaw HQ ahead of delivery to and collection by our community food members. When the fridges arrived, they were unloaded from the lorry with the help of our corporate volunteers from Enterprise Mobility.
Thank you to everyone who helped us with this mammoth operation, from Aldi for organising the donation, GXO for transporting the fridges to us and to our corporate volunteers from Enterprise Mobility for helping when they arrived.
So far, 14 of the fridges have arrived in their new homes and the rest will be following shortly! Aldi also tells us that the rest of the fridges have all been sent to be reused elsewhere ensuring none of them went to waste.
Teamwork makes the dream work!
