March 2024

Our Food Redistribution Centre is looking for new volunteers to join its team.

The Preston-based centre has hugely increased output in recent years to meet the growing need for food across Lancashire and Cumbria. We deliver thousands of tonnes of food to communities – helping our members to deliver millions of meals to people in need, all while preventing food from going to waste. Run in partnership with national charity FareShare, the Centre supports more than 130 community groups and charities across the two counties.

Now extra support is required to keep our vital operations going.

We urgently need volunteers for morning (8am to midday) or afternoon (1pm to 5pm) shifts on weekdays. The roles cover:
> Driving/Delivering goods – driving vans to deliver items to Local Collection Points in Cumbria. This requires a full driving license (this is a whole-day position);
> Selecting food and goods – ensuring each group receives the right items for their target group. This is a manual role, requiring a good level of fitness;
> Supporting logistics – taking accurate records of goods into the Centre, using operational systems. This is a combination of administrative and manual work;
> Rotating stock – managing movement of stock, focussed mainly on the chillers and freezers, to minimise potential waste. This is also a manual role, requiring a good level of fitness;
> Allocating goods – recording the items selected and sent out to groups. This is an administrative role requiring close attention to detail.

Volunteer Coordinator Vivienne Ashurst said: “Our volunteers are an essential and highly valued part of our operation, each bringing different skills and experiences to deliver our vital service.
“In return for their time we support each volunteer to enjoy their own benefits from the experience, whether that’s supporting job seekers to develop transferable skills or ensuring retired professionals can use their experience to help communities. Volunteering can be a transformative experience for anyone – it is a way to develop skills or meet new people as well as give back to your community and help others.
“We’re hoping to hear from anyone who’d like to help us to feed people most in-need in these challenging times.”

To see how we’re supporting volunteers, click here.

To find out more, please contact: [email protected] or call: 07387 015425