'Fantastic' Asda support helps community centre serve meals to hundreds of people
Linda Maguire from our Clydebank store called in at a local community centre to see how the Asda Fight Hunger Create Change scheme is helping them receive more nutritious food to serve to people in need.
Heart of Scotstoun Community Centre's cafe provides home-cooked meals, friendship and support to hundreds of people every week, as well as hosting clubs and events. The cafe is one of dozens of charities and groups to receive food from FareShare's Glasgow distribution centre, which has been refitted with our support so that it can supply more fresh food and deliver to an additional 50 charities and community groups – helping to feed an additional 5,350 people each week.
"Our relationship with FareShare is so important," said the centre's manager Amanda Quinn. "It's instrumental to what we do, and it's fantastic that Asda are supporting FareShare – we're really grateful.
"The food they deliver to us is brilliant. We get a great range of fresh meat, fruit and veg which allows our team to make nutritious meals from scratch which our guests can eat in the cafe or take away. We can feed as many as 400 people a month.
"We're in an area which does have high poverty so the people we provide for are in significant need of help. Many of them can't cook meals because they don't have the facilities, but we can provide ready made meals they can put in a microwave.
"It's not just about dealing with food insecurity; it's about social isolation too, particularly at Christmas. Lots of us overindulge at Christmas, but there are lots of people who can't afford to eat, let alone overindulge.
"We get a lot of people here who don't have any family to spend Christmas with. If we closed they'd have no-one to spend Christmas wIth.
"We just want to try and make sure everybody in our community is OK.
"It was great to meet Linda, and she's said she should be able to volunteer with us in the new year which would be really good."
Scott Crawford, FareShare development manager for Glasgow and West Scotland, said: "Heart of Scotstoun are an amazing organisation. They’re right at the heart of the community serving the needs of those most vulnerable, and it’s charities like these that FareShare Glasgow is so proud to support.
"Thanks to our partnership with Asda, we’re grateful that we’ll be able to support even more frontline organisations like Heart of Scotstoun across Glasgow and the wider area. Almost half of Glasgow’s population live in the top 20% most deprived areas in Scotland – so we know the need for our service has never been higher.
"The new racking we have installed in our warehouse, thanks to funding from the Fight Hunger Create Change programme, will really help us to grow our impact and we aim to provide meals to an additional 5,350 people in need each week by this time next year. We know the community will really value this extra support we’re able to provide."
Linda said: "It was great to meet Amanda and all the team at FareShare too. I couldn't believe the size of the warehouse – it really brought home to me how many people they help.
"I'm hoping to volunteer at the centre soon and support them in any way I can. I think giving up your time is just as important as providing funding."