Where does your membership donation money go?

Wondering what happens to your donation fees?  As a wholly volunteer-run Pantry, we work very hard behind the scenes to ensure our Thursday and Sunday morning pantry is fully stocked with fresh, healthy produce plus a range of ambient items.  Thanks to the kind donations from some of our food partners, and our subscription to the surplus charity Fareshare, we can usually supply a healthy, nutritious and useful package of food to suit most households.

This is where donation money goes:

• Fareshare subscription
• Admin costs (administration of our legal compliance)
• Cost of refrigeration and freezing equipment
• Partial cost of electricity to run above
• Cost of fuel for collections to some volunteers
• Staff Training (e.g. Food Hygiene Certificates)
• Premises Hygiene
• Maintenance and repairs of equipment
• Sundry items (packaging, cleaning materials)
• Purchasing food, hygiene products etc as needed

What it is not used for:

• Rent
• Wages
• Time spent running project
• Cost of building website or POS system
• Cost of volunteer time 50+ collections per week, 100+ volunteering hours per week
• Refuse collection
• Cost spent on meetings, learning and developing systems etc
• Website hosting or development

We can operate thanks to the generous contribution of our volunteering team for their time, and the donation of space in the gym.  Also to the generous donations from food partners such as Tesco Group, Getir, Sainsburys, Morrisons, Asda and Howdens.