Littlehampton Community Fridge unveils its latest acquisition

The project, which has been operating at St James the Great Church for the past 14 weeks, now has five fridges and five freezers.

The new freezer, which was donated by Littlehampton District Lions Club, was officially launched on Thursday by project manager Sarah Renfrey.

Littlehampton mayor David Chase had asked to visit to find out more about the fridge project and Sarah said it was a perfect opportunity to officially declare the newest appliance open.

Because of current restrictions, it was a low key affair but Lions president David Bishop, Father Mark Williams and volunteers were there to witness the occasion, before the doors opened to the public for the morning.

Sarah said: “Without a venue, we could not have done what we have been able to do to support the Littlehampton community during this time, and we are so very grateful.

“The Lions have generously purchased our community freezer so people can help themselves to frozen items, which is something new we can now offer.

“It means we can save even more food from being wasted, through freezing items as soon as we have collected them to extend the shelf-life.”

The project is the first community fridge in West Sussex, launched on July 8, 2019, at Littlehampton Library with just a fridge, a cupboard and two volunteers, Sarah and her husband Barry.

Sarah said: “We weren’t really sure how successful it would be. It was a new concept for the area.

“In almost a year, we have saved over 26 tonnes of good food from being wasted. This is the equivalent of over 62,500 meals and over 110 tonnes of carbon dioxide not released into the atmosphere.

“The week before last saw us save 1.8 tonnes in one week, a record, and the amount of food saved has increased by 3½ times per week on average, compared to pre-Covid.”

When the pandemic hit, the library was closed but the fridge’s enthusiastic volunteers began holding pop-up stalls, before they were offered the use of the church hall.

Sarah said: “We had to adapt quickly and began doing food parcels when we found out the foodbank had also closed at the beginning of the lockdown. Since then, we have managed to do 1,110 parcels in 13 weeks, increasing the number of volunteers and delivering throughout the community.

“The past few weeks has seen us transition back to being a community fridge. More recently, we have been accepting private donations, as people have been having more home deliveries, as well as home-grown veg, and 1.7 tonnes has been saved from homes since lockdown. It would just be sitting in people’s cupboards but instead, it has been distributed to people who need it.

“We are hoping with more people gardening and spending time on their allotments that we will be able to have some lovely surplus fruit and veg coming though, and are even hoping to get a team together to help people who cannot harvest their own fruit and veg.”

Littlehampton Community Fridge is open Monday and Friday 11am to 12pm, Wednesday 3pm to 4.30pm, Thursday and Saturday 10.30am to 12pm.

All are welcome to take five items per adult per day plus bread, which is currently unlimited due to a plentiful supply.

All the food is rescued and needs a home to stop it being wasted.

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