Food at Hope

Food is central to Hope

Read here to find out how Hope uses food in many different ways to bring benefits to individuals and our community.

Watch a short film about the centrality of food to Hope’s work  here:

Not having enough food to eat is, alongside having no home, the most extreme level of poverty.

We supply healthy food to people on low incomes

We provide access to high quality, healthy food from our day services and food club, offered in a positive, fair and dignified manner to people in need. By doing so, we improve people’s health and wellbeing. It’s the simplest way in which we provide essential charitable services to people in need, but it is only the start. For us food is a way of driving change, for individuals, and our society.

We provide food to take away for rough sleepers and sofa surfers and others who have nowhere to cook, from the Hand Up service at Oasis House.

Hope’s foodclub provides discount, but heathy and fresh food to people on benefits , who join the club on a membership system.   The project runs a series of pop-up shops on remote estates, taking food to people where they are, rather than from a static base.   You can read about the project here 

Follow their facebook page:

We convene an alliance of local food aid providers in West Northants and source, store and distribute food for them. The alliance has its own website with a directory of all local food aid providers. Access it here

We educate about food

We teach people how to cook and to budget in our day centre and foodclub so they can eat well on low incomes and so they can get jobs in catering.  Through Hope Catering we offer training in catering for disadvantaged people as a step back onto the employment ladder and towards self-sufficiency. We teach people how to grow veg.

We grow food

In 2018 we started growing vegetables and salad for our various food services, reclaiming derelict urban land for productive use and offering training and education in horticulture and the value of fresh veg. We teach anyone how to grow veg. You can get involved as a volunteer. Read more here

Our growing space offers opportunities for  therapeutic horticulture

We work with other community gardeners to promote veg growing locally as part of West Northants Community Growers. Read about this group’s  work here

WE ALWAYS NEED DONATED FOOD TO SERVE IN OUR DAY SERVICES AND FOODCLUB – IF YOU WANT TO DONATE, CONTACT US VIA office@northamptonhopecentre.org.uk

or look at how you can collect food via our Street by Street initiative,

We actively contribute to the reduction of food waste, but this is not our priority; rather our priority is to see that if there is surplus food from  a broken food system, that it is made available to people in need.

We always need volunteers who can help with our food work. Email volunteering@northamptonhopecentre.org.uk

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We are active members of the West Northamptonshire Sustainable Food Place (WNSFP) partnership working to improve access to good food for all West Northamptonshire’s citizens.

We are very active in the local food aid provider alliance, which we provide organisational support to. Read about that here

We are members of the  Social Farms and Gardens Association

We are members of Good Food Organisations Canada as an international affiliate:

We link closely to the work of SUSTAIN

We are also members of the UK’s Independent Food Aid Network: