Lillington Food Co-op Volunteer
If you're interested in volunteering at Lillington food co-op, please contact the food co-op directly. Call 01926 427684 or email lindaprice@warwickshire.gov.uk.
Project Overview
Lillington Fresh Food Co-op provides an affordable weekly bag of fresh vegetables for local households. The Co-op was set up in June 2005 and currently supplies around 60 bags a week!
Vegetables are local where possible, or British and in season. Sometimes we buy vegetables from Europe if they are scarce here. There is not much British fruit so we have to buy a lot of that from abroad. Once the produce is delivered volunteers divide it up and pack it into bags which are then picked up by members of the food co-op.
Principal Function of Volunteer
A number of volunteers assist our Community Food Officer in the weekly tasks and activities such as publicising the co-op, organising orders, packing bags and researching recipe ideas.
Tasks and Activities
As a volunteer you will carry out some or all of the following activities, depending on your individual capabilities and preferences. This list is only a guide to the types of activities that may be required.
- Taking vegetable bag orders over the phone or face to face.
- Organising and packing vegetable bags
- Recycling cardboard
- Producing publicity leaflets and posters for the Co-op
- Maintaining membership lists of current members
- Informing suppliers via the Community Food Officer of purchase orders for that week (usually a Tuesday)
- Labelling egg boxes
- Helping to produce information/recipe sheets
- Processing Healthy Start vouchers
- Attending Steering Group meetings
- Helping out at community food events like Winter Veg Day, Pumpkin Day or Master Pasta
Benefits
As well as being involved in a worthwhile project which helps promote healthy eating volunteers could gain administrative, promotional and organisational skills. There are also opportunities to learn more about fresh food and new recipe ideas.
Skills/Qualifications/Experience sought
No particular skills or experience are required as full training and support will be provided and volunteers can take on as little or as much as they’d like.
Minimum age: 16 years
Time commitment required
The main co-op day is on a Thursday when the delivery arrives, the bags are packed and people collect their orders. However volunteers are also needed throughout the week for other tasks.
The amount of time required will depend on the roles and tasks you decide to take on and could be as little as an hour every now and then or much more if you have the time!
Time critical tasks
- Tuesday - 12:00 collect extra orders & money from childrens centre & text Judy
- Wednesday - any time, label egg boxes and sort bags
- Thursday - 9:30 receive & check delivery; 9:30 – 11:00 pack bags; 11:00 – 12:0 give out bags, take orders and money for following week; 12:00 clear up, take left over bags/veg to children’s centre and take cardboard to recycling centre
Non time critical weekly tasks
- Creating Recipe Sheets
- Typing up orders from the previous week onto spreadsheets and doing the finance
Non time critical One-off tasks
- Publicity for the co-op, printing posters,
- Helping out organising, promoting and on the day at community food events
Expenses
You can claim back reasonable expenses for travel. How you go about claiming back these costs will be explained in more detail during your induction. If you have the time to volunteer for a full day we’ll even give you a free lunch!
Location
The food co-op packs and gives out the bags from Lillington Youth Centre every Thursday. Bags are then transported to Lillington’s children’s centre for people to pick up.