Dunfermline Foodbank has been short-listed to become one of the latest recipients of funding from Scotmid Co-operative’s Community Connect initiative – potentially being awarded £15,000 in order to help strengthen the service the charity provides in the Fife area.
Community Connect was launched last year and enables Scotmid members to award good cause groups in their local area with funding of up to £15,000, generated via the sale of single use carrier bags.
In Scotmid’s East Member Region – encompassing Edinburgh, Fife and the Lothians – Dunfermline Foodbank are one of three good cause groups, who have been short-listed by a Scotmid member selection panel to receive a financial award of either £15,000, £7,500 or £2,500.
The other short-listed Good Cause Groups are Health in Mind and Venchie Children’s and Young People’s Project – both based in Edinburgh.
Scotmid members collect votes by swiping their Community Connect card after every in-store purchase and then cast their votes for their preferred good cause group either in-store or at Scotmid’s East Region Annual General Meeting in Edinburgh in April.
Supported by the Trussell Trust, Dunfermline Foodbank gives local people in food crisis a ‘hand up, not a hand out’ by providing three days’ worth of nutritionally balanced emergency food as well as signposting clients to further advice agencies to help them in the longer term.
The charity covers the whole of South and West Fife including Benarty, Cowdenbeath, Inverkeithing and Rosyth.
In the past 12 months, Dunfermline Foodbank have fed over 5,000 people and with demand growing the charity aims to use the Community Connect funding to enable them to recruit extra volunteers, have a larger distribution warehouse and take on an additional member of part time staff.
Dunfermline Foodbank Project Manager Jonathan Astill said: “It is a real honour for Dunfermline Foodbank to have been short-listed for Community Connect funding – we’re thankful to the Scotmid panel for giving us the opportunity and it is fantastic to get recognised.
“We’re looking forward to being part of Community Connect and engaging with members and customers – there are quite a few Scotmid stores in the areas we cover.
“The aim is to use the Community Connect funding for three areas – help to recruit more volunteers so we can provide a bigger and better service, bring in an administrator and also to cover warehouse costs.”