Yum Community Fridge and Pantry launches in Leeds district

National World - LocalTV

Armley Action Team have launched Yum, a community fridge and pantry on Gelder Road which diverts surplus food from landfill and supports the local community.

Transcript

00:00 Armley Action Team is a resident-led organisation, started as a community group in Armley LS12

00:08 and it was set up to try and make life better in Armley to help people thrive, not just survive.

00:17 And the focus when they set up was to work in the Town Street area of Armley, which is a fantastic

00:23 high street but has obviously like a lot of high streets in the UK had problems over the last year

00:30 due to the economic climate. We are hearing a lot from mums in the area and dads in the area who

00:38 don't have enough baby clothes and supplies and nappies and formula and food and we'd like to try

00:46 and help them basically. So in response Armley Action Team set up two new initiatives this year,

00:53 one is Bundles which is a reuse shop for nought to 18 year olds and the second one which we've

00:59 just opened is Yum which is a food project. It combines saving surplus from going to waste in

01:06 the community fridge with a social supermarket. We're open on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday between

01:15 2 and 4pm and on a Saturday morning between 10 and 12 and everybody's been really positive. There

01:21 was a gentleman come in the other day and said wow this is fantastic, this is really helping the

01:26 community. We're trying very hard to make this all inclusive and make sure everybody feels comfortable

01:33 coming in, whether you're working and you're feeling the pinch or if you're, we have quite a

01:41 few people who are struggling with benefits because you often get delays and stuff like that.

01:45 So it's just nice to see a nice mix of people. I initially got involved through Climate Action

01:51 Armley because I really care a lot about food waste and I really care a lot about hungry bellies

01:56 and I really wanted that to overlap. So thankfully I was able to get involved as a part of Armley

02:00 Action Team to kind of combine those efforts and so yeah I really wanted to start community fridges

02:06 explicitly. So this is our first one, it's basically a trial of what we hope to expand across all of

02:12 Armley and Leeds eventually. So as a part of that we really need people to donate food that's

02:19 surplus, to give us stuff from their allotments, to give us things that they tried and buyed and

02:24 they didn't really like it that much. Anything basically that is good to be eaten but is extra,

02:30 that's the kind of thing we want, especially fresh things that are that are close to date.

02:34 Armley Action Team has run Armley Festival year on year with 3,000 people attending last year,

02:40 3,000 people hopefully more coming this year on September the 9th on Armley Moor. So they bring

02:46 people together, what we're seeing is a really wide range of people using the pantry so that

02:51 they can manage their household budgets a bit better at this time and hopefully into the future.

02:57 It's a way to save money on food, to save food from going to waste and to save some money for a rainy day.

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