Freegan Boxes cancelled, Cafés and Sharehouses still open!

Our volunteers have been really busy over the last few days.

We were delighted to assist @TropicSkincare in donating their event food to the @TRJFPBrum, with our caterer @Amadeusfood. Read about it here: https://t.co/FJH14GoaAI pic.twitter.com/nUMKXRDhQF

— The NEC (@thenec) March 17, 2020

We’ve been working hard. A group of organisations has come together in to co-ordinate the collection and distribution of food to those who need it, now or in the future, due to the social and financial effects of the covid-19 pandemic.

We have been rescuing food from cancelled events, and drawing on our local partnerships to ensure that as little is wasted as possible and as much as possible goes to benefit those in our community who need it.

We know many people rely on the food we provide from our cafés, boutiques and sharehouses, and more may need to do so in the coming days and weeks, so we want to keep this up for as long as we can.

But we have also been carefully watching the news and announcements from the government, and in light of the announcement that we should stop non-essential contact with others, we have decided to make some changes.

• We will continue to distribute food via as many of our cafés and sharehouses as possible, with extra openings when needed. Please don’t attend if you have symptoms of covid-19, but follow NHS advice to self-isolate.
• If you are symptom-free, but self isolating for your own safety as you are in a vulnerable group, you are welcome to bring your own resealable container to our cafés and we will fill it for you to take away and eat at home.
• There will be no more Freegan Boxes until further notice. We will contact everyone on the list to let them know – please make sure our emails aren’t going into your spam folder!

For the most up-to-date information of openings/closures, follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

More info

TRJFP Brum has the facilities to sort and distribute 10 tonnes waste a week safely. We are working with food banks, The Active Well Being Society, schools, the Warehouse Café and other groups. We have storage facilities in Kings Heath and Winson Green and are making plans on opening other sites.

So if you work in the food industry and know that food within its use by date (or close to its best before date) is at risk of being binned, please get in touch.

Possible sources of food if you are in need

(vouchers may be needed)

• www.findfoodbanksbrum.org.uk
• nextmeal.co.uk
• olioex.com
• foodcycle.org.uk
• TAWS Big Feed
• salma-foodbank.org
• as-suffa.org/outreach/food-bank/

Other sources of info/help

• www.facebook.com/groups/birminghammutualaid/
• nextdoor.co.uk/

Make contact with neighbours to help and be helped.

Keep calm and wash your hands!