24 Apr Bellway staff serve up food at community free meals service in Chelmsford
Three Bellway staff members helped out at a Chelmsford charity which provides free hot meals for the community.
The trio all work for Bellway Essex, which is based in the city, and volunteered as part of the hosting team at FoodCycle Chelmsford on Thursday 21 March. They also took along a collection of food items which had been donated by Bellway staff.
Sales Manager Kate Jones and sales advisors Shannon Wyatt and Shirley Garlick, who are based at Beaulieu Grange, served food and chatted to guests at the charity’s regular Thursday evening meals service at Springfield Park Baptist Church.
FoodCycle Chelmsford is part of the national FoodCycle charity network which provides free hot meals for members of local communities across the country. The organisation works with supermarkets, small independent grocery shops and markets to source edible surplus food to produce the meals.
Holly Wright, East of England Regional Manager at Food Cycle, said: “Our mission at FoodCycle is to connect communities through the enjoyment of delicious, vegetarian meals. Our dedicated collection volunteers pick up surplus food from local stores, our cooking volunteers transform this food into a nutritious three-course spread, and our hosting volunteers serve our guests while engaging them in enriching conversations.
image004.jpg“Beyond simply providing tasty, hot meals to those in need, our volunteers create an inclusive environment, fighting loneliness, welcoming newcomers, and fostering connections within the community.
“Our wonderful Chelmsford volunteer teams are headed up by Project Leaders, Sue and Lynn who are dedicated to making sure our guests are well fed and looked after. We were delighted to welcome Kate, Shannon and Shirley to the FoodCycle team at our meal in Springfield Park Baptist Church which runs every Thursday evening. We are very grateful for Bellway’s support and hope they had a fantastic time at our community meal.”
Kate Jones, Sales Manager for Bellway Essex, said: “Our division is based in Chelmsford and we very much feel part of the local community, so it felt right for us to volunteer our time and go down to the city’s FoodCycle session to help out.
“It was a wonderfully rewarding experience and showed us just how hard the team at the charity work to offer this fantastic service to members of the community who might be lonely or in need of a well-cooked square meal, or both. It is great that FoodCycle Chelmsford is recycling surplus food from local stores which might otherwise go to waste but what is perhaps more important, is that it is providing a safe and inviting environment for people to sit down, eat and be warm in a relaxing and welcoming environment.
“Serving the meals allowed myself, Shannon and Shirley to interact with the guests and to chat to them and to get to know them a little bit. All the guests were incredibly grateful as for many of them, the free meals service is among the highlights of their week.”
Bellway offers all of its employees one day per year to spend volunteering in the local community.
For more information about FoodCycle Chelmsford go to https://foodcycle.org.uk/location/foodcycle-chelmsford.
