EMERGENCY — Our Food Bank’s Electricity Has Been Cut Off

The NotJUST Surplus Hub ( our Community Store and Community Distribution Point) is NEXT — disconnection date is now, after negotiation, set for mid-January, literally even a worse time than Christmas.

This is not a drill. We are fighting to keep thousands of people and pets fed in the biggest debt month of the year.

Hi, I’m Lea, and together with a tiny team of incredible staff and volunteers, we run NotJUST Food Bank & Surplus Hub.

Every single week, we support between 500 and 900 families, plus several other community groups across Shropshire, Worcestershire and Wales.

Now, we are facing the hardest moment in our entire 6 year history.

⚠️ What’s happened?

We have two separate buildings, each with their own bills:

The Food Bank: electricity already disconnected.

The Surplus Hub: disconnection now officially scheduled for mid-January, around Blue Monday - the most miserable day of the year.

This means our unique walk-around model — the one that gives people choice and dignity, instead of a rigid food parcel — cannot operate in the food bank building right now.

And if the NotJUST Surplus Hub goes dark too, we lose the only part of the project that has been helping us stabilise and increase our income.

⚠️ Why has this happened?

Two energy companies made serious technical errors on our accounts, pushing our bills up to impossible levels. One told us for months that they owed us a refund of 6k, then sent a final bill for us to pay of almost 11k.

The other building Smart Meter was not so smart, and wasn't sending readings, and they estimated way too low, crippling us one day when the meter came to life.

We’ve paid what we can, constantly chasing our tail — but we’ve now hit a wall and other bills are suffering.

On buildings alone, we now owe £33,244.74 - this is before other running costs that have now slipped behind. We estimate we owe around 50k, and need a further 10 - 20k to put in preventative measures to stop this happening again.

We receive little to no external funding, structured as a none profit CIC - social enterprise.

That means that huge bills fall on the shoulders of just a handful of kind humans who are giving every ounce of time, energy and heart to keep this going - saving between 40 and 120 tonnes of surplus food every single month.

We’ve cut costs to bare bones, changed our model, and even had to make two core team members redundant to survive.

We are doing EVERYTHING we can — but right now, it’s simply not enough - we need to change to become energy efficient. It would make a huge difference to us to run 3 hybrid chilled vans instead of the barely limping diesels we have, convert to 3 phase electric to improve our efficiency with refrigeration - there is so much that could be done to improve our financial situation going forward.

⚠️ Why this matters

Nobody ever expects to need a food bank.

But in today’s world? Anyone can end up here.

People who have never asked for help before walk in with tears in their eyes, apologising.

We give them dignity, choice, warmth, and hope.

Without electricity, we cannot do that.

Without the Surplus Hub, we lose the heartbeat that keeps us going.

How you can help

We urgently need support to:

⚡️Pay the immediate utility arrears

⚡️Restore the food bank electricity

⚡️Stop the Surplus Hub disconnection

⚡️Clear the remaining debt caused by the billing errors

⚡️Stabilise long enough to keep serving hundreds of families

⚡️(If possible) install Solar and a reuse water system to STOP this ever happening again

⚡️ Turn the whole project into an eco warrior heaven - recycling, recharging - serving the planet more.

If you can spare £5, £10 — whatever you can manage — it genuinely helps save this project for our people and pets.

This is about keeping people and pets fed, keeping the lights on, and saving a lifeline for our town.

Thank you

From me, Phil, Clare, Glen, Tizzy, and every incredible volunteer, and supporter who refuses to give up on our community — thank you for standing with us.