How did we first start?

(photo taken by Steve Davey)

 

So where did it all begin ?

Laura, Cathy and Ella met one day on a park bench in Menston to chat about the idea of starting a community fridge.

 

They all wanted to have a positive impact on the environment and climate change at a local level and helping to reuse some of the hundreds of tonnes of food that goes to landfill seemed like a good way to do this.

 

Jeni and Heather joined the team and then the hard work started!

Connections were made at Hubbub, Bradford Environmental Health, the Health & Safety Executive, the Community Fridge Network, Fareshare, the list goes on and we, particularly Cathy, spent hours filling in spreadsheets and forms. Heather set up our charitable status under the umbrella of Kirklands Trust and we had regular meetings for 5 months to pull everything together.

 

Initial funding from Menston Parish council helped us purchase the fridge, paint our room, design & print logos and banners, and contribute to other initial outlays. We had a small old freezer donated, this didn't last so long but allowed us to recognise the value of the freezer space and we were very fortunate to have a donor purchase a larger new freezer for us.

 

We used other local businesses to help us and were delighted Small Print in Menston did all our design & print work and High Speed Training in Ilkley gave us some courses for free as one of their contributions to local charities.

 

We then started to recruit volunteers for our open sessions and for supermarket collections and to organise our regular collection slots. We always need more volunteers so please do get in touch if you think you could help.

 

We opened officially in March 2023 following a succesful open day to showcase our fridge.

 

We have now, in October 2023, been open for more than 6 months and have redistributed over 18 tonnes of food that would otherwise have gone to landfill. We're really proud of our team and our volunteers for this!

 

 

 

Laura

Laura runs her own catering company and so is a great asset when it comes to food hygiene and the rules around this. She organises our supermarket collections and the rota as well as doing a significant amount of the collections herself.

 

Ella

Ella is great at social media and the website particularly and has lots of ideas to bring to the start up team.  She also helps collect food donations once a week with her husband Patrick and is the main link to Climate Action Menston.

 

Jeni

Jeni is involved with various aspects of the fridge including regular collections, admin, compost and helping Ella with the website.

 

Cathy

Cathy is our Chair and main contact for the fridge. She organises our complex volunteer rota and has set up all our comprehensive administrative paperwork which is legally required.

 

Sarah

Sarah is a passionate volunteer at the fridge contributing to the collection rota regularly.  With her background in marketing and research she is also keen to help support the fridge in these areas.

 

Heather

Heather is our connection to Kirklands Trust. She looks after our finances and organises our grant applications.