Surplus to purpose

Many hands to make light work
We intercept surplus food and redistribute it globally, whilst giving away free food to schools.

5 GoodGymers have supported Surplus to purpose with 3 tasks.


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LeedsCommunity mission
ZaneerIkechukwu ChristianJitheeshAlice Barker

Alice in Blueberry Wonderland

Sunday 8th September

Written by Leeds runner

On Sunday, three GoodGymers made their way down to Surplus2Purpose. A very productive session for everyone with Christian putting many kilos of sugar and beans into small pots for customers. Alice seemed to run the show for us being Adam's trusted volunteer of the day, helping to arrange the shop floor, stocking and tidying the drinks fridge, as well as quality controlling hundreds of fruit and vegetables. As a now regular volunteer, I helped Adam by manning the till and helping out customers.

The GoodGymers today were the sole volunteers in the afternoon so the help was very much a help as the organisation had a record Sunday, probably spurred by the 5KG of bacon for £4.50!

We ended our day by trading in our volunteer credits for some already highly discounted goodies. On the way out, Alice spotted some Blueberry Bagels, that are part of the community bakery section which is completely free, that she managed to take home as a little treat - is it a stretch to name this report after that? Probably

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Helen NoyesLeah ArchibaldIkechukwu Christian

Fermenting ideas

Saturday 20th July

Written by Leeds runner

Four GoodGymers headed down to Surplus2Purpose on a lovely warm Saturday morning to help combat waste and make the world a better place by preventing fermentation in the freezer and enabling acess to some lovely fermentated kombucha in the warehouse. It was a very quite weekend at the usual very busy organisation but I think Adam's request for the public to come help and clear THREE PALLETS of frozen goods on Thursday led to the public sating their appetite for the week.

We first started by quality assuring the baked goods section, which is completely FREE to the public, which included a variety of breads; white, brown, tiger, seeded and so on (i am not on expert on bread).

Helen and I tackled the defrosted bits left at the bottom of the freezers which were emptied on Thursday, cleaning the freezer and then a physical lowering of our bodies in to get little defrosted bits left such as small peas.

We were later joined by Leah and Christian who took the time to reorganise the produce on display, making them look neater and therefore more palatable to the public! The last bit of order to the day was restocking and correctly bunching the kombucha together in their respective brands and flavours.

Wednesday's Summer Social, if I don't eat them by then, you may be witness to some of the goodies nabbed from the warehouse.

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LeedsCommunity mission

A Cool Tale of Fridge Feng Shui

Saturday 22nd June

Written by Leeds runner

One Goodgym-er headed down to Surplus To Purpose to help restructure the warehouse in anticipation of their reopening on the 1st July.

The first port of call was unloading a pallet of probably around a thousand cups and lids out of a pallet that was left outside a little too long and got a bit wet. The pallet was looking a bit soggy and sorry but fortunately the cups inside were perfectly fine as they were wrapped in plastic sheeting. These cups will later on be used to package up dried beans and be put on the shelf for the general public.

The next thing to do was to organise the new drinks fridge which was primarily loaded with similar types of drinks but some sections had different types of flavours and brands so it was important to fix this so customers didn't have to rummage around the fridge trying to find. This was probably the most satisfactory thing I had done for some time 10/10 therapeutic, would do again.

Last time I came down, I was only able to clean half the community fridge that had been donated, I was determined to also clean the freezer this time too before I had to leave and I just finished cleaning off the bottom tray when it was time to get some goodies before I left for the day.

Four hours of volunteering (it's entirely up to the volunteers how long they want to stay - as little as an hour is fine!) for some wings, potatoes and a cake. I also found out that Surplus to Purpose only has two permanent workers, meaning everyone I've met their other than Adam (the founder) is a volunteer - just shows how lovely and important this place is.

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