The SEC Food Cupboard is a community project set up to reduce waste.
A group of local volunteers receives/collects surplus food from the supermarkets (Eg via Felix Project) and makes it available to anyone and everyone from the local area. The SEC Food Cupboard is available to all โ its aim is purely to reduce waste and everyone can help with that. Always Free!
The selection of food items each week will vary according to what is surplus food on that day.
35 GoodGymers have supported South Ealing Community Food Cupboard with 72 tasks.
Monday 30th June 2025 10:30am - 11:30am
Monday 7th July 2025 10:30am - 11:30am
Monday 14th July 2025 10:30am - 11:30am
Monday 21st July 2025 10:30am - 11:30am
Monday 28th July 2025 10:30am - 11:30am
Monday 4th August 2025 10:30am - 11:30am
Monday 11th August 2025 10:30am - 11:30am
Monday 18th August 2025 10:30am - 11:30am
Monday 23rd June
Written by Sevan
There were 3 reasons for celebration at South Ealing Food Cupboard this morning:
Wait... what?! In addition to the usual DHL food drop, the Tesco driver came to the church garden rather than Church Gardens, a nearby street. The volunteers started to unload birthday cake and fruit before realising that this was not the delivery they were expecting.
Thankfully, there was plenty of food in the actual Food Cupboard's deliveries too, which Martin, Josh and Sevan helped to move into the church. These included some fancy meats like steak, duck and venison as well as exotic mangoes and papayas. The usuals were there too, with plenty of ready meals stacked into the fridges by Josh and Sevan and the ever present banana crates, which were very green this week.
After a quick costume change into his GoodGym t-shirt, Martin was ready for his big moment and put on the shiny 50 good deeds sash to be the star of today's photos ๐. Well done Martin! You've shown great dedication to South Ealing Food Cupboard, helping new GoodGymers to feel welcome at this task and be able to jump right in and have a big impact. ๐
Monday 16th June
Written by Sevan
Monday mornings in Ealing mean South Ealing Food Cupboard, where food that supermarkets have overstocked on is given away to the public, avoiding it being wasted. For some people, it's the most fun that they have with GoodGym, turning carrot chaos into tomato tranquility.
Today was no different, with crates full of oranges and tangerines, fresh turkey and the now common sight of Hello Fresh meal kits that'd been torn open, mixing all of the ingredients together randomly. Alan and Sevan helped some of the regulars haul the second delivery inside, where Iram and Martin were helping to unpack and organise everything in the 2 small rooms that are the Food Cupboard. Eventually everyone moved onto sorting donations and stacking shelves and fridges.
Bananas are ever present too and some of today's delivery had seen better days. Iram took on the task of sorting through the crates, finding the ones that were almost or already turned to mush and disposing of them. There were still a lot of bananas, so everyone grabbed a bunch to take home and there was a tempting stack of biscuit boxes near the door too ๐.
Monday 2nd June
Written by Sevan
Sevan arrived at St Mary's Church and met the regular volunteers who were having a chat in the sun, waiting for the second delivery van to arrive.
"Looks like one of your lot is working in the garden. Red t-shirt with white writing on the front" - Graham
Sevan went to take a look at who the gardener was, which is a story for later...
Soon the familiar DHL van rolled up and everyone sprang into action, ferrying crates and boxes of food to the church building. There were a few cardboard casualties en-route, but all of the food made it to be sorted through and put on display. Sevan was joined by Iram at her first task, with them both helping the regulars in identifying and stacking salad leaves and herbs. Iram tried hard to make the biggest stable pile of cos lettuce packs and to separate flat leaf parsley from coriander. Well, new GoodGymers need to earn their stripes. Welcome Iram ๐๐๐ฅณ! Great work and we look forward to seeing you at another task soon.
Today's delivery had few ready meals and was relatively meat free, with cocktail sausages and 2 giant pizzas being the main items for carnivores in the fridges. The pizzas were so big that they and their packaging ended up being cut into smaller pieces with a bread knife to be shared between the clients ๐ช. Other than the pizza, the most unusual item today was a box of tiny, super concentrated limes that most of the volunteers had decided to test out in the line of duty to their clients ๐คข.
Monday 28th April
Written by Sevan
South Ealing Community Food Cupboard were flooded with mysterious brown bags this morning and the big challenge was where to put them all. They had big numbers printed on them, which weren't helpful, then smaller text showing how many people they'd feed. They were undelivered Hello Fresh meal kits, perfect for those who could turn them into something tasty at home.
Mehmet was already hard at work stacking crates onto trolleys when Martin and Sevan arrived. The delivery van was smaller than normal and that meant less food on the Food Cupboard shelves too. Still, everything needed to be moved and the brown bags were loaded, along with a lot of broccoli, sausages and Wasabi ready meals and shuttled to the church building.
There was plenty of chilled food to organise in the limited fridge space, which Martin did his best to solve by playing Wasabi tetris.
"There's no room at the inn" - Martin
Mehmet and Sevan were kept busy with the meal kits. They separated the 2, 3 and 4 person bags to be placed on different shelves, making them easy for the clients to collect.
There were rumours of a second coming of the delivery van, so Martin and Sevan hung around on the off chance that it would. When there was no sign of it by midday, it was time to wrap up.
Monday 7th April
Written by MOHAMED NAOUM
Today, I participated in a community activity that takes place every Monday at the South Ealing Community Food Cupboard. This project aims to reduce food waste and carbon emissions by redistributing surplus food to members of the community.
During this activity, we received surplus food from supermarkets (such as the Felix Project) and local market traders. We then sorted and organized the food in a way that was suitable for distribution to those in need.
A large number of people visited today, and it was heartwarming to see the gratitude and joy on their faces as they received the food.
This type of volunteer work brings me happiness and satisfaction, helping me build good relationships within the local community. It also gives me the opportunity to contribute to reducing waste and making a positive impact.
I always believe that: To be happier, you must make others happy by helping them.
Monday 31st March
Written by Sevan
There was already a big queue of people outside South Ealing Community Food Cupboard at 10:30am, 2 and a half hours before the doors opened to the public. Going inside, Sevan found that one of the regular clients had made banana bread, which was being shared around the volunteers, including Martin, Eliz and Sevan. The banana bread was a vision of what was to come.
When the delivery van arrived, Sevan was in the sun, carting crates of food to the church building and handing them over to Martin, who'd find the right spot to place them to be unpacked later. Eliz was busy organising the food donations, especially trying to stack the fridges in a sensible way to make everything fit and still have the food be easily accessible.
The shelves and fridges were stacked speedily and ready for service by 11:30. There were big deliveries of bananas, bread and mushrooms for the clients to help themselves to and banana bread is probably on the menu again for the volunteers next week ๐.
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