Feed Your Community
The Feed Your Community group was a collaboration between FYA and the Felix project and sought to help reduce food waste and provide food to those in need. Our 2023 Ambassador consultation had indicated that anxieties regarding food access and food poverty were impacting young people.
Initial work between Felix and FYA indicated that the group were most concerned for homeless people locally during the winter. The group then organised to collect surplus food on a weekly basis from a partnering organisation of Felix Project, supported by Deliveroo, who also wanted to reduce food waste. The donated items included items that could no longer be sold such as dented cans, food soon to pass it’s best before date or fruit and veg that was considered ‘wonky’ and could not be sold. Young people collected and then delivered these items to a local homeless and refugee centre identified by Felx Project, who then used the food to make hot meals. Young people showed unwavering commitment collecting and delivering the food, choosing to continue volunteering beyond the origonal end date of the project. FYA is now part of the Tackling Poverty forum with Camden Council, which includes the Food Mission, to continue assessing how young people can be part of designing responses to food inequality in Camden.