Karbon Homes Community Fridge - Press Release

Community Fridge Fully Stocked this Christmas

Thanks to the kindness and dedication of local volunteers, Consett Community Fridge is set to open its door on Christmas Day.
A team of volunteers are giving up an hour of their time on Christmas Day to open the fridge which provides surplus food, collected from local shops, supermarkets and wholesalers, for local people, free of charge.

Items will include fresh, dried, tinned or packaged food that may have exceeded its ‘sell by’ date but is still within its ‘use by’ date.

Terri Leighs, Consett Community Fridge Director said: “We’re really lucky to have volunteers who will give up their time on Christmas Day to open the fridge. 

“Shops and supermarkets end up throwing away lots of food at Christmas, due to being closed for two days, so it’s brilliant that our volunteers will be on hand to collect this food on Christmas Eve and distribute it out to those who need it most on Christmas Day.”

The fridge, which is based at the Umbrella Community Centre on Victoria Road in Consett, operates all year round and opens three times a week. Since April 2019, the fridge has served over 1500 people from the local community.

Jess Wray from Karbon Homes, with (from left to right) Terri Leighs, Consett Community Fridge Director, and volunteers Pamela March, Mark Hatcher and Steve Whitfield.

Thanks to £11,800 of funding, secured through Karbon Homes’ ‘Investing in Communities’ grants fund, the fridge is continuing to grow from strength to strength. 

Terri added: “The community fridge needed to move to a more suitable location earlier this year, and the funding from Karbon has been really valuable in getting us set up and integrated into the new venue.

“There’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to keep an operation like this running smoothly and the Karbon grant has enabled us to take on a fridge co-ordinator, who oversees the operation and organises the moving around of the food and the volunteers.” 

Karbon’s Community Connector Jess Wray, who has been working with the fridge, added: “This is a fantastic project and is making such a significant difference to the local people. It really does embody community spirit, and they’re the type of projects Karbon is always keen to support.”

The fridge will be open to all local residents between 1pm-2pm on Christmas Day.
Normal opening hours for the fridge are Monday 2pm-3pm, Wednesday 3pm-4pm, and Saturday 1pm-2pm.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

Karbon provides homes and services which form the foundations for people and places to fulfil their potential. We believe that having a strong foundation enables people to develop the life they want.
As a housing association, we own or manage almost 30,000 properties across the North East of England and Yorkshire and develop more homes every year. 
We provide social rented, affordable, specialised, shared ownership and market rented homes, and also develop shared ownership and market sale homes to meet our customers’ aspirations.
As a profit-for-a-purpose business we invest any surplus we generate into improving our properties and communities, building new homes and delivering services which provide sustainable outcomes for our customers and communities.
We seek to provide a great customer experience, which is informed by insight, including engagement with current and future customers.

https://www.karbonhomes.co.uk/news/2019/december/community-fridge-fully-stocked-this-christmas


Media Contact: 
Graeme King
Public Relations Officer
Karbon Homes
   
T 0191 223 8236
M 07930 841919    
E graeme.king@karbonhomes.co.uk
W www.karbonhomes.co.uk
T @KarbonHomes

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