The Social Supermarket has gone from strength to strength since it started at the end of October. The team of volunteers that run it have really shone and showed such commitment and dedication to the project – they have become a dream team. The feeling and atmosphere that has build at the Social Supermarket has been incredible, full of warmth, happiness and friendship. We have attracted more volunteers that believe in it and want to support it’s growth. We have increased our business partners that donate week on week surplus stock to ensure it is not wasted and to support their local communities. We have been able to offer additional support in the form of hygiene products from The Hygiene Bank, supply warm home supplies thanks to National Energy Action, administer household support grants and offered free home energy checks with Paul from ECOE. We also provided Christmas presents to local families that were donated from Teign Housing and Gnash Comics in Ashburton.
Even with all these incredible achievements aside the numbers really show how well the community have received the Social Supermarket. We now have 126 households joined as members – that is amazing in just over 2 months. We have gone from 27 households using the supermarket the first week to a high of 49 this week. On average we support 37 households a week but each week the number is growing with around 9 new members joining. We honestly have been overwhelmed with the support and need for this wonderful community project.
The one downside is that we are running out of stock earlier than 17:30, whilst we are building new relationships continually with local food businesses and are on a waiting list to increase our supply from Fare Share at this present time demand is exceeding our supply. So after discussion with our volunteers it has been decided to now close the Social Supermarket at 17:00. We are hoping this is only temporary and we will be able to extend the opening hours again as we build up more of a supply.
Thank you so much to all of those that have supported us so far and we cannot wait to see what 2024 brings.