Emergency Food Fund for Cornwall Organisations is Open for bids
An Emergency Food Fund for organisations in Cornwall that help ensure good quality food can be produced and supplied to those struggling to afford to feed themselves and their families, during the COVID crisis, is looking for bids.
Existing and new community food organisations across Cornwall can now apply for funding from an Emergency Food Assistance Fund to pay for food, equipment, storage, transport costs or any other items which can build their capacity, infrastructure and resilience so they are in a stronger position to help their communities access emergency food and essential supplies.
This fund is available for existing and new community food organisations who can demonstrate that they are able to support individuals and families to access nutritious food. It cannot make cash payments to individuals.
Key points of the scheme are:
- Individual grants for organisations of up to £25,000.
- An organisation can apply for a maximum of two grants to encourage them to think longer term about the needs an operation as opposed to quick-fix budget issues which can reoccur.
- Grants can be spent on Revenue and Capital to enable support for infrastructure costs which many of the groups have told us they need help with.
- Recipients to have spent their grant by 31 March 2022 to allow sufficient time for the grant to have a more sustainable impact.
- In keeping with the recent emergency community chest grants, we will allow non-constituted groups to apply as we recognise that a number of these have been set up at very short notice as part of the Covid response work and are likely to need financial support. Where a group is not constituted, we will ask them to let us know which organisation or town or parish council can hold the funds on their behalf so we are not paying money into an individual’s personal account.
The Council are collaborating with the newly formed Cornwall Food Access Alliance and the voluntary sector to ensure the grants scheme best fits the community food sector needs.
The Emergency Food Assistance Fund will be operated by Cornwall Council officers, jointly led by Neighbourhoods and Public Health, through the Food Security Workstream of the Communities and Wellbeing Recovery Group.
Cornwall Council has received a grant allocation of £678,000 from DEFRA, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to launch this programme.
The Local Authority Emergency Assistance Grant for Food and Essential Supplies is for local authorities to use to support the community food sector in helping people who are struggling to afford food and other essentials due to COVID-19: https://www.gov.uk/government/
More information on our Council web page: https://www.cornwall.