Community Fridge – our new “cool” project!

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve been successful in receiving £4000 from the Co-op as a part of their Community Partnership Fund to set up a brand new Community Fridge project. 

A Community Fridge is a social space that brings people together to eat, connect, learn new skills and reduce food waste. 

Hubbub coordinates the world’s largest Community Fridge Network with a whopping 280 Community Fridges now running across the UK. 

Thanks to Co-op, they've been able to rapidly increase the size of the network by funding 350 new fridges – including ours! 

This exciting partnership will allow them to grow the network to over 500 Community Fridges which could save up to a total of 26 million meals from going to waste annually. 

The fridge will be a student-led volunteering project, open to students and the local community to come and take free surplus food that’s been donated by the University’s food outlets and other local shops.

One of our current volunteers explained why he got involved:

“I wanted to get involved in this project because it is a fantastic opportunity to improve food wastage at the University and in Preston. Improving food wastage is a goal of mine, as tonnes of perfectly good food around the world is wasted.

I believe food like this should be used in a more effective way, rather than being thrown in the bin. 

The community fridge allows a more cost-effective way of eating fresh foods. This is important to me as the cost of living has increased, which means that the community fridge can help those who really need it. 

The aims and goals of this project inspired me to get involved, as it can allow fresh food to be used whilst benefiting the local community. This is a really beneficial project and I encourage others to use the fridge and get involved.”

We are looking for student volunteers to join the project either to help us plan, design and launch the fridge ready for Freshers, or to collect surplus food from local shops and businesses. 

If you can offer some time please sign up on the website now: Volunteering Opportunities (uclansu.co.uk) and we’ll be in touch when we have our next meeting!