Community Food Network (CFN) is new organisation (with a legal constitution) of like-minded Midsomer Norton and Radstock volunteers who are passionate about getting free, high quality, healthy, and nutritious food to those in need.

The Co-founders of the group (who do not want personal publicity) knew of and realised that there were many people in the community who were struggling to obtain enough food to feed themselves each week.

Their realisation is backed up by BANES' own figures which state that approximately 19% of children in Bath and North East Somerset were living in poverty in 2017/18 when housing costs have been taken into account.

According to these official figures, 31% (that's nearly 1 in 3) of children in Radstock live in poverty. When considering published Indices of Deprivation (which measure how poor areas are) areas of Midsomer Norton and Radstock are some of the poorest areas in the whole of the UK.

(Source: https://www.bathnes.gov.uk/services/your-council-and-democracy/local-research-and-statistics/wiki/socio-economic-inequality)

CFN realised that COVID would only make food poverty worse due to people losing their jobs, being furloughed, having their hours cut, having to take time off of work to look after children, not being able to work because of their profession (e.g. hairdressers), etc.

Even with the amazing work of the Somer Valley Food Bank and BANES' Community Wellbeing Hub, CFN knew that they needed to help people who were still finding it hard to feed themselves.

CFN put out a request on Facebook for food donations and one of the first organisations to immediately respond and donate was Welton Rovers Football Club.

Using the Welton Rover's donation CFN set up the Care Bag donation scheme. The Care Bags are advertised mainly through Facebook Community groups and people in need of food are invited to message the CFN page requesting a Care Bag.

CFN have a "no questions asked" policy of reserving the Care Bags. The Guests (the people CFN donate to) are then given the details of where they can collect the bags from.

CFN is now in its third week of donations and thanks to the generosity of the Radstock Carpet & Bed Centre, CFN can onwards to donate Care Bags to its Guests this week.

People in need of food are asked to follow the CFN Facebook page for details of future donations HERE :

their Facebook page

If people would like to donate to CFN to provide more Care Bags in the coming weeks they have a crowdfunding page HERE :

the Just Giving site

Because CFN is comprised of volunteers who pay their own expenses, 100% of the money donated to the page will be spent on long life food for the Care Bags.

Businesses and organisations who would like to support CFN are asked to contact them through their Facebook page.

CFN would like to say a big thank you to Welton Rovers Football Club and Radstock Carpet and Bed Centre for getting the project established.