FareShare food redistribution charity seeking more local partners in County Derry

Celebrating its 15th birthday this year, the food redistribution charity FareShare is reaching out to potential local partners in County Derry.

Speaking to the County Derry Post, Róisin Colohan, the FareShare operations manager, explained the charity was based in Mallusk in Newtownabbey, County Antrim and delivers food to projects throughout the North.

“We are up in Dungiven, Limavady, Derry and Strabane three times a week,” she added, “and we have room on our van for Derry on a Monday, if any locally-based food distribution centres want to get in touch. They can contact me by email at: roisin.colohan@fareshareni.org.uk and I will get back to them or we can arrange a visit to the warehouse.”

FareShare is a project operated by the charity Homeless Connect in Northern Ireland - a membership body for organisations working with people experiencing homelessness or at the risk of becoming homeless.

“We are part of the wider FareShare network,” said Róisin. “The FareShare UK network has been in operation for 30 years this year and in Northern Ireland the project was set up 15 years ago this year. It has a two-pronged approach. It is to try and tackle food poverty and also to try and tackle food waste.

“We receive food donations from international suppliers - the bigger supermarkets  - and we also have a fantastic network of local suppliers who donate surplus food to us,” she added.

“Now, when people hear ‘surplus’ they sometimes might think it’s maybe food that has  gone off. It is not at all. The food we receive is of the best quality. Our motto is If you wouldn’t eat it yourself, you wouldn’t give it to anybody else to eat.

The purpose of FareShare is to try and support people who are experiencing food poverty or food insecurity.

“The whole purpose of FareShare is to try and support people who are experiencing food poverty or food insecurity or any type of poverty because food poverty comes into any type of poverty.

“FareShare delivers food. We don’t deal with the end user ourselves. We deliver food to different projects and then they distribute the food to the end user. 

“It can be social supermarkets. We also deliver to schools. We have seen an increase in the number of schools applying to FareShare. That could be for breakfast clubs, after school clubs and for parcels going to families. We also supply to homelessness hostels. That is where we actually started out delivering to,” said Róisin.

FareShare also delivers food to older people’s lunch clubs and non profit organisations getting support in the community.

“What we ask for is that there is a wrap-around service provided, so we are not just putting a sticking plaster on the problem,” said Róisin, “because we need to support people who are in poverty.

“There are many reasons why people find themselves in poverty,” she added.

“So, what we do to try and support people and to move them out of poverty, is working with our  local partners, we will provide training. 

“We will maybe bring people in and do some benefits advice, for example help them to fill out forms because people don’t know they are entitled to certain benefits or they might think they aren’t entitled to them, so it is good for them to come in and get that wee assessment done. That can really help support people. 

“The transfer over to Universal Credit has been causing a lot of issues so the organisations on the ground are supporting people with that. There is a five week gap between people applying for Universal Credit and getting access to any money. Obviously that is having an impact on people.

“In FareShare we are just trying to get as much nutritional food out as we can to people who need it as possible and we are lucky with the network of donors that we have here. We always have a good supply of fresh fruit and vegetables,  fresh meat, bread, milk and butter. It is just to try and make sure people are getting those essentials,” said Róisin.

FareShare is a volunteer-led organisation. 

“We would not be able to do the work we do without our team of volunteers,” smiled Róisin. “We have 43 active volunteers at the minute and they will come in and help out with the administration side of things - going through and taking people’s orders. They are also out on the floor building up orders so our drivers can get the deliveries out the next day.

“We have noticed an increase in demand for the service we provide in the last few years,” she added.

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“I always say, I know covid was six years ago but I don’t think people have really had a chance to recover from that. 

“And then you have the war in Ukraine. You have the cost of living crisis. Then the food prices started to drop a wee bit but  now we have the war in Iran and everybody’s fuel prices are going up again and, it is said, the food prices are going to go up too, which is part of that impact. 

“What we are also seeing is maybe some of the smaller projects shutting down because they don’t have the funding or they are not able to do the fundraising because everybody is struggling across the board. 

“I go out and meet with the organisations that use FareShare once a year. It gives me a chance to hear stories from them. What we are hearing is people come to them for food support and when confidence and trust is built, clients will say they are struggling with debt or whatever, and FareShare’s local partners will support them or signpost them to support,” said Róisin.

She reiterated: “The food aspect is obviously very important because that is what people need but it also is opening up the doors for people to get additional support they weren’t even aware they needed or existed.

“There is still a stigma about being in poverty. What I would say to anyone reading this article is, ‘Please just come forward and ask for help if you are struggling at all. Do not be suffering in silence. The organisations on the ground are fantastic and they do fantastic work’.

“Poverty has an impact on mental health and we don’t want people struggling when there is help.”