An exciting new initiative will soon be launched in the South West to try to save waste and to reduce food poverty in communities.

The Devon & Cornwall Food Association (DCFA) has recently been formed to provide good quality food to organisations working with disadvantaged people within our communities. Every year millions of tonnes of first class food ends up in landfill sites. At the same time, even in this modern day and age, there are thousands of people - including many children - living in poverty in the UK.

Our plan is that DCFA will eventually become a franchise of FareShare UK. FareShare UK is a nation-wide charity which supports communities to relieve food poverty. FareShare is at the centre of two most urgent issues that face the UK – Food Poverty and Waste. FareShare was voted UK’s Most Admired Charity in March 2010.

Food which is still in-date will be collected from the FareShare Depot in Bristol and directly from other local outlets in Devon and Cornwall on a regular basis and then distributed to those organisations serving vulnerable and needy people in our two counties.

A spokesperson for DCFA said...

“FareShare is operated nationally throughout the UK and our nearest set-up is located at Bristol. Our Group aims to extend the area of this operation into Devon and Cornwall. We’ve already held preliminary meetings, formed a Private Company Limited by Guarantee and have a properly elected Board of Trustees. We are currently in the process of registering with the Charity Commission.

Initially we intend to travel to Bristol to collect a supply of food to distribute weekly, but the longer term aim is to obtain storage facilities in Plymouth and make Plymouth the main hub of our operation. At this stage, cold hard cash is the main stumbling block!”

The Company is urgently seeking funds to hire a transit van on a weekly basis to make the journey to Bristol and back. Perhaps there is a commercial company in Plymouth that could help us out with this? Additionally we need a small warehouse or storage and distribution facility – initially for just one day per week.

The Company is run by volunteers and is now looking for more people to join our team for driving, food handling and food distribution, fundraising and various administrative tasks. Can you possibly help us in any way? If you can, please get in touch with our Company Secretary, Geoff Read, by telephoning 07745819828, or by emailing:

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

If anyone is interested in finding out more about our charitable organisation and its aims, then please visit our brand new website at: http://dcfa.webs.com/

To find out more about FareShare UK, please visit http://www.fareshare.org.uk

Attachments:

110106 PRESS RELEASE.doc

[Press release as document]

89 Kb