St John’s Spitalgate in Grantham awarded almost £10,000 in National Lottery funding to create community fridge project

A church is able to launch a community fridge project thanks to £10,000 funding.

St John’s Spitalgate, Grantham, is celebrating after being awarded almost £10,000 in National Lottery funding to support its work with creating a community fridge.

The church will use the money to employ a part-time project co-ordinator.

St John’s has joined Hubbub, which coordinates a national community fridge network.

A community fridge is a space that brings people together to share food, meet up, learn new skills and prevent fresh food from going to waste.

For a nominal membership fee, community fridges are open to all and anyone can share or take food, including surplus from supermarkets, local food businesses, producers, households and gardens.

There are over 450 fridges across the UK (and counting).

For a second winter, St John’s will continue to offer a warm space within the parish room located in the church.

This will be funded, through the help of Shine Lincolnshire, with a grant from the local area’s NHS Integrated Care Board.

Warm spaces help to reduce isolation in the community and ensure residents have somewhere warm and welcoming through the cold months.

The new funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest community funder in the UK, will ensure that the community fridge is open soon for the residents of Grantham.

Fr Clay Roundtree, associate priest of St John’s Spitalgate, said: “We’re delighted that The National Lottery Community Fund has decided to fund this important work.

“Now, thanks to National Lottery players we will be able to fund a project coordinator who will bring volunteers together and launch the community fridge in the near future.

“This is important because community fridges are a tried and tested way of reducing the environmental impact of food waste, which is a huge issue.

“Because of rocketing food prices and widespread loneliness many community fridges have also become a lifeline and valuable meeting place at the heart of their community.”

The National Lottery Community Fund recently launched its new strategy, ‘It starts with community’, which will underpin its efforts to distribute at least £4 billion of National Lottery funding by 2030.

As part of this, the funder has four key missions, which are to support communities to come together, be environmentally sustainable, help children and young people thrive and enable people to live healthier lives.