Help crisis food gosport buy a van

Hello everyone, for those of you that have just stumbled across this crowd funding I will briefly explain who we are and what we do.

My name is Charlotte and I run crisis food gosport with fiona, we are a very small but very mighty team of 8 volunteers who run the not for profit community group. Crisis food was started as a direct response to the pandemic in march 2020, delivering free food parcels to vulnerable members of our local community. We run crisis food from my home and it all began from a cupboard under my stairs, then a small tin shed on my driveway, then a 3 metre by 3 metre metal shed on my drive way and finally a 5 metre by 5 metre wooden cabin that houses metal shelving for our ambient food, 7 freezers to store anything suitable for home freezing and finally a tall fridge.

Crisis food is slightly different to food banks and similar organisations. We have zero criteria and you do not need a professional referral. We have no desire to know your situation, if you or your family are hungry, have no food or money to buy any and you reach out to a stranger on the Internet, that tells us all we need to know. We never ever ask you any questions, it’s absolutely none of our business why you have no money, our only concern is making sure you are fed. Doing things this way allows members to feel comfortable, safe, confident and unashamed. Although there’s nothing to be ashamed about having no food in the cost of living crisis, people are still proud and it takes a lot of courage to reach out, we have no desire to make them feel incompetent, which is exactly how people feel when you start asking why they can’t afford food.

All those that know us, know we rarely ask for help we sit quietly behind the scenes helping those that need us without any great shows or fuss but things have become so tight for us now, we need a hand so we have swallowed our pride and created this gofundme

What does crisis food gosport do?

We provide free emergency food parcels for people that have no food or money to buy any. We also provide weekly food hampers, people that can donate money for these hampers to cover the cost of our fareshare membership.

How is our project funded?

We are self funded. Unlike churches and other organisations we aren’t entitled to any grants or funding. We hold weekly auctions where we sell new or nearly new items to try and cover our overheads, electricity for 7 freezers and a fridge, van hire to collect all our food, fuel for the van to collect all of our food and fuel to deliver the hampers for free and finally to buy the food we need for our emergency hampers when we run short and as you can imagine with the cost of living we are doing emergency hampers daily and our shelves are bare.

Why do we need money?

We collect all our food and to do this we have to hire a van. We pick up a huge fareshare membership every Thursday and the rest of the week we pick up donations , usually on a daily basis. Although van companies slightly reduce the hire cost, which is incredible, van hire is expensive and sometimes all their vans have been lent to other people and we don’t have access to one, leaving us with no vehicle and anxiety on how we’re going to collect food to feed the people we support.

How will a van help?

Having access to our own van would allow us to collect more food which will then help us support more people. The money we would have spent on van would go towards the electricity and buying extra food. Also our project accumulates a lot of rubbish, a lot of rubbish and instead of doing daily trips to our local hwrc in my car, if we purchase a van with a window in the back we could use it weekly to clear the rubbish at the tip and finally it would help me, by this I mean I wouldn’t have any anxiety and worry about if we can get a van this week, we could literally hop in the van at any point and collect our food and even more food!!

Why a high target?

1: a good, mechanically sound van won’t come cheap

2: insurance for 2 people for a whole year

3: Road tax for a year

4: maintenance

5: breakdown cover to keep us protected and on the road

6: money set aside incase of any fault or repairs needed

7: some money set aside to purchase food for emergency hampers

8: fees, there are fees associated with any crowd funding

As a team we would like to thank you for reading this, please do not feel obliged or pressured into donating any money, a share of this page is enough, it may reach people that are in a position to help that may value us and what we do.

Again, thank you

Charlotte, Fiona and the rest of the cfg team