Stockton on Tees Food Power Network (SFPN) promotes the health and wellbeing of people in Stockton.  The SFPN was created to promote healthy and sustainable food to the public, good food affordable and accessible  to all, to tackle food poverty and diet related ill health,  increase skill, knowledge and resources,  and also include growing projects, whilst reducing food waste.  We are a lead member of this alliance and form part of the working group, where our skills and expertise are drawn upon to help develop a sustainable and resilient plan to best achieve the outcomes above.

 

SFPN has been established for 12 months, and we have been awarded our first grant during Covid from Sustain to be delivered from Nov 2020 – Feb 2021, to improve nutritional value of food to communities ensuring people experiencing financial crisis or food poverty can have access to healthy and affordable food through the provision of weekly fruit and vegetable bags.  This project will improve nutritional value and diet during this very challenging time, and also supporting people with opportunities to access additional services such as money management, budgeting through CAB. 

 

We have completed our first evaluation, and this has led to a grant extension until end of April 2021, with total grant value of approx, which supports core and project costs.  This grant enables us to engage with our communities, up to 7 school, and community groups and community champions and provide additional services to address financial insecurity and food poverty using food as the key engagement tool.  We engage with up to 70 people/families a week on this project.

 

In Jan 2021, we have been approached by Sustain regarding a further small grant of which we have decided to apply to scope and mapp our planned work on community/eco shops.   Our evidence at Havelock Street, community/eco shop has enabled people to retain their dignity while directly addressing the impact food poverty creates and our role is to reduce dependency on foodbanks and move people towards this new environment created and supported by members in their own communities.  Our goal is to use this funding to identify how we make these community/eco-services move towards a sustainable model and use this to evidence to share with other members in SFPN.