Our mission is to reduce food poverty and loneliness, progressively and determinedly by offering a space where our community can come together
As a partnership, we know that depending on food banks is not a sustainable or dignified way to live and we passionately believe that having enough to eat is a human right.
Having witnessed the increase in local food poverty and social isolation in recent years, we feel the increased urgency of our mission to progressively and determinedly reduce food poverty and loneliness by offering our community a place where they can come together to find joint solutions to the issues they are facing.
The Fitzherbert Community Hub is a place where all are welcome, where all will be nourished with food, friendship and fun.
A benchmark project
Partnership & cooperation
It is the first time a Real Junk Food Project has been co-located with a grassroots sports club, embodying links between sport, physical activity, diet, health, wellbeing and community cohesion.
Dignified & affordable
The café uses a pay as you feel model thereby removing the stigmatisation around affordability.
Low environmental impact
Food served in the daily café will be intercepted surplus, reducing both cost and impact on the environment.
Creating a blueprint
The Fiztherbert Community Hub creates a replicable blueprint for new ways for other churches to use their space to work more effectively with other charitable organisations.
Telling a different story about food poverty and social isolation
We want to tell a new story about food poverty and social isolation, one where there are no assumptions of ‘selfmakingness’ or ‘othering’. Our aim is to create a welcoming space where people can come together to share a meal, a place where conversations and connections are made easily, where people feel safe to develop and showcase their strengths.
Our vision & Aims 2021-2024
The partners have worked together to ensure that our plans for the Fitzherbert Community Hub are achievable and sustainable in the long term and align with the development needs of all our organisations. We have developed a three year plan, identifying key activities, associated targets, intended outcomes and ways of measuring the impact.
Vision & long-term aims
Welcoming and nourishing all with food, friendship and fun.
The mission of the Fitzherbert Community Hub is to progressively and determinedly reduce food poverty and social isolation by providing a safe place where local people can come to eat, form lasting relationships, exercise and belong.
We aim to support community solutions for overcoming increased local need, particularly due to Covid-19, through facilitating a better-networked neighbourhood.
In 3 years’ time, we hope to see a happier, healthier, and more connected community with the Fitzherbert Community Hub at its heart.
How we will achieve our aims
Building a welcoming, purpose-built, fully accessible, well-managed building with community garden (opened in Autumn 2021).
Providing freshly cooked food in a café environment on a pay as you feel basis 5 days a week, increasing the number of meals served from 50 to 100 a day (12,500 a year to 25,000 a year) over 3 years
Installing purpose-built facilities for the BTTC Food Hub and VIE Food Bank.
Creating a NEET catering training programme with a starting cohort of 5 per annum growing to 20 per annum.
Increasing provision of table tennis and other physical activity with a focus on those who are currently physically inactive or mobility impaired.
Working with local GP surgeries and statutory agencies to provide social prescription opportunities with an aim of year on year growth to 50 social prescriptions per annum by 2024.
Partnering with a range of external organisations to create a programme of passion and interest-based activities to instil a feeling of belonging in the community
Providing a robust framework for monitoring the impact of the FCH using the HACT Social Value Bank tools.
Outcomes
Significantly reduced food poverty and dependence on food banks due to the availability of regular, healthy hot meals made accessible to all through the pay-as-you-feel model.
A more sustainable local area, where people look out for each other and help one another more, as our communities have opportunities to meet on a regular basis and get to know and understand each other better.
Increased confidence in the local community to share and showcase skills leading to an increase in the number of local people active in the delivery of the Hub and a renewed sense of purpose.
Bridges built between normally separated groups in our neighbourhood, thus reducing social isolation.
More local people employment-ready through volunteering at the hub and participation in the NEET catering training programme.
Reduced local food waste through the use of produce otherwise destined for landfill in the kitchen.
A fully developed blueprint for how churches can work more productively with locally embedded charities which has been replicated elsewhere.
Governance
The project partners recognise our responsibility to ensure that we have appropriate governance mechanisms in place to deliver the public benefit the Fitzherbert Community Hub promises, to illustrate and give evidence of its impact and to ensure spending is prudent and transparent.
To enable us to fulfil these obligations the partners have signed up to a Memorandum of Understanding and established a Steering Committee which meets on a monthly basis.
The Steering Committee is comprised of representatives from each of the four partners along with service users, thus ensuring that our work is co-produced at both a strategic and operational level.
We have 4 members of staff including a Hub Manager who is responsible for the operational management of the Hub, securing funding to ensure our ongoing sustainability and monitoring and compliance of external grant funding.
Find out more about the FCH project
If you would like to know more about the Fitzherbert Community Hub, want to offer financial support or are interested in volunteering opportunities, we would be delighted to hear from you!
