One of the things the Co-Operative Movement has always tried to do is support local causes and activities. As with other outlets, our Milborne Port Co-Op has been looking for partners to help it distribute its surplus out of date food to people who need it. As you know, all packaged food in supermarkets is dated, either with a ‘Best Before’ or ‘Use By’ date. Usually they discount ‘Best Before’ items near the date and withdraw ‘Use By’ items altogether. If they are not confident of selling within the dateline, they dump the food. This is very much against the Co-Op philosophy.
A group of people in the village have responded and are forming a working team to help. The trustees of Church House have kindly allowed the distribution to be done from there. Users will be those who have hit hard times due to short hours at work or loss of jobs. We do not envisage a full food bank operation; that is available in Sherborne. We need a team of volunteers to run the project.
Can you help? The need is for people to collect from the Co-Op in the evening as many times a week as we can manage, and take the food to store in Church House. A distribution session will need two people each time. We will offer one or two sessions according to availability of volunteers and the usual Church House timetable. There will be some background work too. Please give this some thought. A steering group has been formed under the Chairmanship of Elaine Ennis and we are in touch with the Co-Op locally and with their head office.
There will be a dedicated email address and phone number in due course but at the moment please contact Frank Wright via email address frank.wright1993@outlook.com if you are interested
