Elevate your team’s bonding experience while making a difference in your community with FareShare North East’s Corporate Volunteering Days.

What is a Corporate Volunteering Day?

Step out of the office and into the heart of charity work with FareShare North East’s Corporate Experience Days. Engage your team in a meaningful volunteer day at our bustling warehouse, where every action helps us get food to those who need it most.

Why Choose Corporate Volunteering?

Showcase your company’s dedication to social responsibility and strengthen team bonds through a day of purposeful action. Our volunteer sessions offer a unique blend of teamwork, camaraderie, and hands-on impact, providing your team with an immersive glimpse into the world of food surplus and food poverty.

Support Our Mission

In addition to the invaluable support provided through volunteering, we kindly request a fee to cover operational costs or invite your company to commit to hosting a fundraising event in aid of FareShare North East within two months of your visit. Join us for an afternoon fundraising plan where we’ll collaborate on creating a memorable event that further supports our mission.

What should we expect?

• Group Size: Gather your team of up to 8
• Session Duration: Sessions run from 9:30am, with a warm welcome and a tour of our warehouse, along with a thorough health and safety briefing.
• Volunteer Activities: Get ready for a dynamic day of action, including sorting and packing food deliveries, assisting in loading FareShare vans, and maybe even accompanying drivers on food deliveries across the North East
• Optional Fundraising Plan: With our wealth of knowledge and materials, we’ll provide the guidance and support you need to create a memorable and impactful fundraiser.

Ready to Make a Difference?

Elevate your team’s volunteer experience and join us for a Corporate Volunteering Day at FareShare North East. Together, let’s create lasting memories while making a positive impact in the fight against food waste and hunger.

Find out more

The world’s Biggest and Best half marathon

For over 40 years, Newcastle upon Tyne has been the home of the Great North Run. The Great North Run is the world’s biggest and best half marathon with an unbeatable atmosphere and a course that takes in the iconic Tyne Bridge and finishes in the coastal town of South Shields.

We have 10 keen community champions who are currently training to run the half marathon on Sunday 11th September and help raise money for FareShare North East. Keep caught with up updates on our events page.

Support our Runners!

Whilst our runner spaces have been filled, you can still support them and FareShare North East by raising money and donating the funds. The money raised goes straight towards supporting vulnerable people experiencing food insecurity across the North East, helping to get food to those who need it most.

Donate Here

With the Cost of Living Crisis rising more than ever and inflation reaching its highest records this year, we’re desperately in need of food parcels to help support vulnerable people across the North East.

We are always seeing a change in our stock levels, but recently it has been a major concern and we need to do something to help the food levels rise again. It has occurred that thousands could be pushed into deeper poverty and hardship so it is a must to find a solution and to tackle hunger in the North East. We addressed the situation to a few of our groups who we deliver to in Sunderland to see how it has affected their organisations over the last year. 

Fightback Charity

Fightback Charity supports vulnerable individuals and families who experience multiple disadvantages arising out of their particular social circumstances. They run their own food bank and have adapted to the Cost of Living Crisis by providing support, advice, advocacy, mediation and representation in person and through social media. There was also a massive increase in the need for food support, as they are currently providing more than 100 parcels per week as the numbers are increasing weekly. Diana Lambton from Fightback said:

“When clients come every Monday and Thursday for coffee morning and ask for ready to eat food to take home so they don’t have to use gas or electricity, there is a problem. The welfare state is most definitely failing to protect vulnerable people”.

The Salvation Army 

The Salvation Army in Southwick, another group we deliver to, are already seeing increased need with more people seeking food parcels as they deal with rising costs. They are responding to the needs of people up and down the country who are struggling to feed their families, heat their homes or pay their bills. For many, the church and charity in the Southwick area is a lifeline offering practical support such as food and household items to ease the burden as well as educational opportunities and friendship. Graham Wharton, community manager, said:

 “The practical support – providing food parcels, toiletries, cleaning products, is a big part of what we do and will continue to do as we see the cost of living going up”.

Find out more about FareShare North East and the work that we do here.

Ruth, Sally and Viv are part of a small community of FareShare North East volunteers centered in Stocksfield. All of whom began volunteering during the first Covid-19 lockdown. We find out more about the Stocksfield team and their experience of volunteering for FareShare North East.

Ruth started volunteering as a warehouse assistant in January 2020, after receiving a recommendation to volunteer from her sons: Joe who already volunteered in FareShare London, and Danny who volunteered in Leeds. When the pandemic hit and the boys returned home, Ruth, Joe and Danny volunteered at FareShare North East together. The opportunity to volunteer as a family unit was an amazing experience for Ruth.

After a six-month hiatus from volunteering, as Ruth supported the NHS with the roll out of the Covid-19 vaccination programme, she returned back to her role in September 2020. She mentioned that the diversity of the volunteers, the shared sense of purpose towards an important cause and feeling like an integral part to charity were all significant pull factors.

“I always speak so highly of my experience at FareShare, and quite a number of my friends have now joined me at FareShare which is fun’.

….which brings us to Sally!

Sally is a retired secondary school teacher, specialising in vocational training and community involvement. Sally enjoys learning new skills and continuing old ones by participating in many artistic courses, as well as volunteering with other charities, such as Citizens Advice Northumberland (CAN). Sally found out about FareShare North East through a colleague at CAN, as well as her friends and colleagues living in Stocksfield. Sally knew that volunteering would bring her more community involvement she desired, which led her to sign up for warehouse assistant shifts.

“Suddenly it was a whole network of names I knew so well, all giving their time and skills. It was just joining a team I already knew’.

When asked about what they would say to someone who was thinking about volunteering for FareShare North East, Sally said ‘I would say just go ahead and do it! There’s a role for everyone and it’s addictive! You meet so many new people and in my case catch up with old friends and acquaintances’. Sally mentions that the opportunity to work with friends, rekindle old friendships and make new ones, has made her volunteering experience worthwhile.

Viv also expressed her enjoyment for volunteering at FareShare North East, mentioning that she is always happy to be of help, however small her contribution.

“It [FareShare] is an exceptionally welcoming and supportive agency and no-one is under pressure to perform outside of their capabilities. It is efficiently run and is a good environment to experience real team work”.

So what are they doing outside of volunteering? Other than volunteering at Citizens Advice Northumberland, Ruth enjoys walking the dog, cycling, cooking and studying economics at the Open University. Now in retirement, Sally enjoys leading a good work/life balance, where she enjoys participating in activities that are rewarding, and is part of friendship groups who read, exercise and craft together on a weekly basis.

“I am very lucky in my life, and am very grateful to FareShare for enabling me to enrich my life by doing something to help others”

We really appreciate the time and effort our wonderful volunteers donate to FareShare North East. FareShare North East always welcomes new volunteers to join our team. If you are interested, please let us know.

We are excited to announce that Kavli Trust has granted FareShare North East £170,000 to fund a two-year project that aims to alleviate hunger and food waste and provide opportunities to people who are out of work or on a low income.

“Together FareShare North East and Kavli Trust will save food from being wasted, and at the same time provide new opportunities for people in need of jobs and a higher income” – General Manager at the Kavli Trust, Inger Elise Iversen

Kavli Trust, the owner of Primula Cheese, donates all of its profits to good causes and supports research, culture, and humanitarian work worldwide. With their UK headquarters based in Gateshead, they are keen supporters of charitable organisations in the North East, funding work by local places including the Great North Air Ambulance Service and North East Hearts with Goals.

The generous funding from Kavli Trust offers our charity a huge opportunity to do more for our local communities. The grant will go towards running costs of a new warehouse based in Teesside, which will help FareShare North East reach more charities and community groups who serve food to people who are in need.

FareShare North East makes up a part of the UK-wide FareShare network of charitable food redistributors. Last year we saved over 2000 tonnes of food from going to waste, redistributing it to 326 charities and community groups. The groups we deliver to include children’s breakfast clubs, day clubs for older people, domestic violence refuges, homeless shelters and drug and alcohol rehab units. They use the food we send to make meals, provide training, or give food parcels to people in need.

“We are honoured to be gifted with such a substantial grant from the Kavli Trust. This funding will allow us to expand on the work that we do and have a greater impact on those living in the North East, providing work and training opportunities, and allowing us to reach more people and organisations with good to eat, surplus food deliveries” – Jake Hanmore, Chief Executive of FareShare North East

Providing New Opportunities

The funding will allow for a new employability scheme at the Teesside warehouse and create a new job opportunity by funding costs for an on-site training manager. FareShare North East currently runs a regular employability programme, working with Your Homes Newcastle and Gateshead College. These courses use a mix of classroom and work experience-based learning to help people who are looking for work develop skills, knowledge and gain the experience they need to find paid employment. Funding from Kavli Trust will create a new programme based in Teesside aimed at helping people in the area who are out of work.

Developing Food Skills Across the Region

Finally, funding will go towards working with Nourish Food School to create a food training programme. Nourish Food School is a new social enterprise on a mission to shape the way people see, eat and experience food. We will be working with them to bring accessible courses to individuals who are looking to develop their cooking skills, and for the groups we deliver too so that they can make good use of the surplus food we provide.

Kavli Trust is making a huge contribution to what we can offer to our local communities and we are so excited to be working with them. To find out more about their work and the other projects they support, visit their website here: www.Kavlifondet.no/en

*Photo: From the left: FareShare North East’s Development Manager, Katie Bates, Chief Executive of FareShare North East, Jake Hanmore with Marketing Director of Primula Cheese Lisa Thornton and Brand Communications Manager at Primula Cheese, Gareth Watson who handed over the gift check on behalf of the Kavli Trust.

A third of the food produced globally is either lost or wasted and it’s having a massive impact on climate change. Find out more about how we are participating in #FoodWasteActionWeek.

Running from 7-13th March, the aim of Food Waste Action Week is to create lasting change that helps to deliver the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of halving global food waste by 2030. FareShare North East’s key objectives align with these goals.

Why is Food Waste an Environmental Problem?

Currently, at least one-third of all food produced worldwide is wasted. When food is wasted, all the energy and resources used to create that food are wasted to. This is a huge problem for people and the planet.

If food waste were a country, it would be the world’s third biggest greenhouse gas emitter, behind China and the USA. To make matters worse, if that food ends up in landfill it produces methane – a greenhouse gas up to 86 times stronger than carbon dioxide.

In the UK, food waste accounts for 6-7% of total greenhouse emissions, with an estimated 2m tonnes of perfectly edible food needlessly wasted on UK farms and in factories every year, instead of being sent to charities and community.

The Hidden Carbon and Water Cost of Food Waste

Food is such a resource intensive product to produce. Lots of energy and water is used to create it, but wasted at the same time. Astonishing findings from the Carbon Trust found that for every 1 tonne of food redistributed to charities prevents 1.6 tonnes of embedded CO2e from being emitted into the atmosphere. 1,525,000 litres of water needed to produce that food can also be needlessly avoided.

In 2021, FareShare North East redistributed 1,718 tonnes of surplus food, avoiding the waste of 2.5 billion litres of water…that’s enough water to fill over 1,000 Olympic swimming pools. 

FareShareNorth East’s Impact

Our food system will need to make major changes if we are going to feed everyone sustainably. Reducing food waste is a crucial part of the solution. By getting the best use out of food that’s already been produced, we can help create a food system that works for people and the planet.

In the UK, 1 in 8 people go hungry, while about 1.3 billion meals worth of good-to-eat food is wasted every year instead of going to charities. The UN estimates that just one quarter of all food that is wasted could feed the world’s 870 million undernourished people.

FareShare North East believes that the best destination for edible food will always be people’s plates. By redistributing surplus food we can avoid needless waste and needless hunger. We can keep edible food out of landfills and help reduce the pressure to grow more food while supporting people struggling with food poverty. It’s a win-win for people and the environment!

#FoodWasteActionWeek

Find out more about Food Waste Action Week 2022 here