6 core activities – open to everyone, participants can join weekly workshops to address any of the challenges they face during the cost of living crisis.
Budgeting
Cooking,
DIY
Sewing
Parental Support (Messy Munchkins sessions)
Employment & Careers Advice
Driven by participant input, we will have an adaptable delivery. We have our own premises but also use community facilities to ensure accessibility across Plymouth.
Delivering for over 10 years, with a proven track record. We have a strong membership and following. Workshops have recently finished through cessation of funding. We have a list of EOI’s which shows the ongoing need.
Tag: financial support
£4 Budget Cinema Ticket for Unwaged or Low Income
The best way to watch a film is to make it an event and see it on the big screen, with an audience. We don’t want people to break the habit of coming to the cinema because they can no longer afford it. We introduced a £4 Budget price (full price £9) in a trial from 1/10/22 to 31/1/23. We sold 241 Budget tickets and welcomed 58 first-time visitors to the cinema. Plymouth Live named PAC as one of Plymouth’s kindest businesses for this initiative. We’d love the chance to make it a permanent offer and develop it further.
The Kit Bag Project – Is five a day all we need?
Funds acquired will be used to implement our new innovative program which is underpinned by nourishing and educating children and families about the importance of ‘not just’ consuming the five recommended fruit and vegetables a day, and will be delivered through primarily non- referral foodbanks to target the cost of living crisis & holiday hunger including the stigma.
Moreover, the program consists of the promotion of the other five core messages and ‘promoting immunity in the community’ (see below)
1. Hand washing
2. Mental health
3. Nutrition
4. Exercise
5. Climate change (the 5 Rs)
Practical ways to save money
We would like to deliver a range of practical activities on a weekly basis that not only support people to save money but also support the reduction of social isolation and loneliness.
Activities will include:- how to sew a draught excluder, Slow Cooker sessions, How to reduce food waste, A clothes swap and others .
We have engaged with the local community at our Wellbeing and warm hub and these are some of the activities they feel would be benefit them.
We will run activities on a rotational basis and change/amend activities in line with community wants and needs.
Community Roadshow 2023
Livewell Southwest’s Wellbeing Team and Food is Fun CIC to coordinate and facilitate a series of community engagement events to support local communities with healthy lifestyle behaviours under the constraints of the cost of living crisis. This will be a roadshow event style and will take place in different communities across the city. The most deprived communities will be targeted based on local knowledge and according to the indices of multiple deprivation (IMD).
Food is Fun CIC will provide slow cookery workshops. The Wellbeing Team will use this opportunity to offer brief behaviour change interventions for those in attendance.
Feast of Fun
TPT seeks funding for this year’s Feast of Fun programme. Benefitting children are known to churches and identified at risk of hunger without this provision. TPT has a 5-year proven record of church collaboration to provide this programme, which typically offers free, safe and local activities incl. meals for all children attending.
Churches provide venues, volunteers, activities and support so the meals are the only cost. TPT have secured part funding to provide approx. 8000 meals for children in 2023 and have a shortfall of £1.25 per child to provide hot nutritious meals via Plymouth’s Feast of Fun provision.
The Village Hub Club
Our need is working with people not for them and to ensure support is proportionate.
We have found the following useful:
Having an Emergency Fund where visitors can access provisions at a local shop
Providing Advice and Support
Sharing information at awareness events – a one stop shop
Paid advertising to reach as many people as possible.
Work with existing partnerships e.g. JarSquad learning to turn surplus food into meals
Upskilling the community by providing training on food hygiene so visitors can make nutritious meals for the community using items from our food larder.
What’s next Stoke?
Home Springs Eternal
There is an identified need in our community for essentials that help families and individuals to feel settled at home. As we head into Spring, we want to deliver packages to people to help them during the cost of living crisis. These will include new kettles, toasters, quilts, pillows, bedding, cutlery, blankets, essential kitchen equipment and shower curtains, towels, as well as cleaning and hygiene items. They will be catered for each person/family’s needs and especially for those who are having to move into a home with just days notice – such as fleeing domestic violence, or given asylum.
Onward community drop in activities
We currently run a weekly food aid drop in session that has also gown in to a social gathering opportunity. Apart from supporting people with food items we have become aware of other needs both emotioinal and practical. As part of the drop in we also have Plymouth claiments union who meet every fortnight to support people with benefit advice. We would like to expand with other activities and support to people.
We have had many requests for various other support, both practical and creative and see there is great need. We would like to engauge a community sessional worker.
CityPlym Coummunity SUpport Hub
Our current initiative was launched in December 2019, in response to the needs of our student community. A group of Access to Higher Education students realised that a group of their peers were struggling financially and were often unable to afford basic food items. To address this issue they approached the students union for assistance in establishing a food bank, a project that has developed swiftly and supported many students, particularly during the lockdown period of COVID. In May 2022, due to the additinal services added (honelessness, personal hygiene, young parents, clothing) our initiative was relaunched: CityPlym Community Support Hub.