Amount awarded £1,300. 

 

The project called Second Helpings is the brainchild of a member of the church. Volunteers collect surplus food from shops, farms, restaurants and hotels, and use it to cook lunch at the church every Saturday.

 

Up to 50 people eat lunch each week, making a small cash donation if they can afford it.

 

The project quickly became a real success story because it proved a great way of bringing people together and reaching out to those in need, but there was one problem, says assistant treasurer Roger Ing.

 

“We needed a place to store the food collected overnight before it was prepared. The obvious place was the church’s basement cellar, which at the time was a bit of a dumping ground.”

 

It was clear that quite a bit of money would need spending on it so the church set about raising the funds.

 

Roger says: “We successfully applied for a £1,300 grant from the Methodist programme to put towards the work which involved repairing the 130-year-old stone walls and installing a ventilated dry lining system to combat any future damp before applying a breathable lime render. We also had to remove some asbestos around some heating pipes.”

 

The upgraded cellar at the church in Stamford, Lincolnshire, is now complete. Food is stored in three-quarters of the space with the rest allocated for general church storage.

 

Roger says: “It has meant that we’ve solved a problem of having a cellar not being used and deteriorating over the years by putting it to use for both for Second Helpings and the church.”