Celebrating 3 Years Reducing Windsor’s Food Waste

It is estimated that 1,000,000,000 tons of food are wasted around the world each year! 61% of the food wasted in the UK (4.1 million tonnes) is avoidable! Food that is still perfectly safe and good to eat.

Originally Tiia’s idea was for her charity Driven Forward to set up a Community Wellbeing Hub but just as she was getting the hub up and running Covid struck and changed the world forever. Focusing on feeding the homeless became a priority and on talking to supermarkets and other food outlets she realised how much food was simply being wasted.

On 7th September 2020 Driven Forward turned the Wellbeing Hub in Alexandra Gardens into a Community Fridge and began helping anyone who needed extra food. Including feeding 500 key workers during lockdown.

Those in need came from all around the area, for the extra food but also the moral support that Tiia and her team provided. 

“I’ve been visiting driven forward for the past couple of months and I’ve got 3 children and it has been so useful. I’d be lost without.” Sawyers Close Resident

It soon became apparent that more space was needed, fridges & freezers were required to enable food to be stored for longer and shelves to organise the increasing donations of ambient foods, tins, packets and bakery products.

Duffy’s Bakery became available and this offered the perfect space and also a supportive landlord keen to help his community. Windsor’s Community Fridge at 181 Oxford Road opened its doors in June 2021 and has been actively helping local food retailers minimise their food waste by finding the food good homes.

“We do not means test our “rescuers”. We want everyone to come and visit us and walk away with a bag of food that is perfectly safe and good to eat. Open from 11am to 12:30pm Tuesday to Friday. We just ask for a minimum donation of £3 to help pay our bills. Please come and visit us and experience Windsor’s Community Fridge for yourself.”

COMPETITION TIME

To celebrate our 3rd anniversary on 7th September we’d like to invite ideas of how we could theme our PHONE BOX that is near the soldier statue at the junction of the High Street, St Alban’s Street and Park Street.

We’re looking for 4 themes for the next year: Nov-Jan, Feb-Apr, May-Jul, Aug-Oct. If schools can join in, we’ll pick a winning theme for each quarter and invite the winner and their school mates to come and decorate the phone box.

All entries need to be in by the end of September so we can choose our winners by the end of October.

Please submit your ideas by Saturday Sept 30th to driven.forward@outlook.com or drop a letter into 181 Oxford Street, Windsor SL4 5DX.

Thank you.

Driven Forward Community Fridge Team