by Grace Uphill | Aug 17, 2022 | Food Poverty, Leftovers, Nutrition, PAM News
As part of our ongoing mission to alleviate food poverty and hunger – and to compensate for technical issues preventing us from receiving donations through the website and app – Provide a Meal has partnered with the team at Neighbourly to deliver surplus food parcels to beneficiaries and needy individuals at the point of need.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Neighbourly helps to connect retail outlets with social enterprises, like Provide a Meal, so that unsold food can be donated free of charge to those who need it. The team at Provide a Meal receive daily notifications for surplus food donations, and work with the outlet to organise a time for collection.
We then work with our network of hostels in the local to supply their residents with a healthy, nutritious range of meals and snacks.
CASE STUDY – PRET A MANGER
Through The Pret Foundation, we have forged a strong relationship with the Pret A Manger shop in Gunwharf Quays. After the shop is closed for business; a variety of salads, rolls, sandwiches and snacks are made available for Provide a Meal to collect to make sure their unsold food goes to those who need it most. These food parcels are then delivered to hostels in the area, including All Saints Hostel in All Saint’s Road, Portsmouth.
This has proven to be a very mutually beneficial and rewarding partnership; and we we are hugely appreciative of the support and commitment shown by The Pret Foundation and Pret A Manger to make this a success.
We are keen to expand and scale this initiative by growing the number of outlets which we receive donations from so that we can serve more hostels and beneficiaries.
Receiving more donations of non-perishable items is another focus so that we can help satisfy more longer term needs.
HOW CAN YOU HELP?
At Provide a Meal we are constantly on the lookout for new volunteers to help deliver our mission to alleviate food poverty and hunger. If you would like to get involved with collections and food parcel delivers, please get in touch at [email protected]
by Bidemi Green | Jul 6, 2020 | Food Poverty, News, Nutrition, PAM News
PAM successfully raised £4,300 within 28days to feed people during the Coronavirus Pandemic crisis. This notable milestone would not have been possible without the contribution of over 50 supporters who share the same vision with PAM to help provide food to the vulnerable. This campaign kicked off on our social media platforms with active participation from our followers who helped to spread the word to reach potential donors and people in need.
With the outbreak of Covid-19, some of our beneficiaries were unable to access nutritious food through our partner restaurants. As a result, our volunteers at PAM have been working tirelessly to ensure that people are catered for. We have been doing this by dropping off emergency food boxes to support our most vulnerable people and their families within Portsmouth.
Our goal with the crowdfunding campagn was to raise £4,000 by the 4th June 2020. However, the generous support we received helped us to meet and exceed the goal. We were pleased to raise a total of £4,300 by the end of the campaign. The amount raised will help to fill more emergency boxes to be sent out to those in need.
Part of this fund will also help to complete the development of the PAM’s mobile application which can be used to further feed families, individuals and their loved ones. The support we have received will ensure that our volunteers continue to put a smile on people’s faces during and after the lockdown.
PAM sends out a big thank you to to everyone for taking the necessary steps to ensure that we continue to keep people’s spirit high within Portsmouth. Here are some comments from PAM’s donors and supporters –
Rommel: Worthy charity helping and supporting to feed vulnerable people
Oyekunle: This is a fantastic idea, especially during this testing time. Well done to the team
Michael: I strongly believe in supporting the less privileged and the hungry and hence why I’m supporting PAM
Ajibola: Support the initiative to help others and put a smile on someone’s face.
by Admin | Jan 22, 2020 | Food Poverty, Hot Meals, PAM News
Every food poverty story is different, but every new story is one too many. A research by the Social Market Foundation shows that groceries were a strain on the finances of four in ten individuals with a household income of £10,000 or less. A quarter of individuals said that healthy and nutritious food was unaffordable and One in ten said that they had to cut back on their own level of food consumption so that others in their family (such as children) can eat.
“Provides A Meal” is an application designed to feed people in need and ultimately give healthy food. We are committed to making UK a hunger fee zone but to do this, we need everyone to get involved. Our application is designed to bring everyone together to solve this problem such that, individuals who identify someone hungry can provide a meal-code for them and the beneficiaries don’t need a phone to get a meal. With such meal-code created on the app, the beneficiary can only use it to get a meal from a partner restaurant and nothing else. We had two options on how to give the meal-codes to people in need;
1. Giving through a charity
2. Giving directly to the person in need.
With the 2nd option however, we are consulting with The Charity Commission to define the category of people that can receive the meal-codes. For now, the codes can only be given to any Charity Partner on the platform but as soon as the charity commission gives the go ahead to use the individual option on the application, we will update our application and users can continue to provide meals directly for people they have identified as hungry.
