Lifeafterhummus Community Benefit Society

We have 2 FTE members of staff who manage the operations at our society. We collect and redistribute 5 tonnes worth of surplus food every month from circa 45 local stores and supermarkets. Thanks to 50 local volunteers. Many of whom are local residents of St Pancras and Somers Town who volunteer 1.5hrs a week to access a surplus food shop in our social supermarket. Often having a value of circa £40. Collections and redistributions are done using a mixture of hand carts, bicycle trailers, e-cargo bike and using the cars of volunteers. Our volunteers provide 585 hours per month at a value of £7,780 of in-kind support. The surplus we collect has a value of circa £15,000 per month (according to figure from WRAP). St Pancras and Somers Town ward is a multi-deprived ward in the borough of Camden and many of the local residents who volunteer have health/ complex health needs. The surplus food we collect is redistributed to roughly 80 local households, 11 local hostels, 1 after-school club (twice per week) and 1 faith group. We also accept pre-loved items which we sort and redistribute in our call our 'Room of things'. Where local residents can access: clothing, household items, stationery items, toys and children books. Items that are damaged and broken are taken to Regis Road Recycling Centre. Pre-loved items are further distributed on passive clothing rails (take what you need) at 2 local nurseries, 1 local secondary school in partnership with the sixth formers and 1 Camden Council library. We also have a surplus food cart outside of the centre and a passive clothing rail. Alongside this we provide sign-posting, referrals, social prescriptions, DofE and work experience to our young people and hands-on employability support to local residents. We are able to provide this level of support thanks to local and national funders, personal donations from everyday people who believe in our work, support from Camden Council and some corporate partners.