Community Initiatives

Working with our local community

In the summer of 2020, Marcus Rashford’s free school meals campaign highlighted the scale of food poverty in Britain. We immediately set up our Pay-it-Forward fund. We had been contacted by many of our customers, asking if they could buy boxes for others within the community. Through the generous donations to our PIF fund we were able to send our veg boxes to the people within the local area that needed a helping hand.

We were overwhelmed by the generosity of our customers so looked to the local foodbank networks to make sure the donations got to the people who needed it most. Since then we have delivered thousands of our veg boxes throughout the Cotswolds, working closely with the North Cotswold Foodbank Network and with Gloucestershire County Council on their HAF Project, to try and make sure that there are less people going hungry within our community.

Shipston Community Christmas Lunch

Since 2022, we have partnered with Shipston Community Christmas to deliver veg boxes to local, vulnerable people in Shipston, which is 10 minutes down the road  from CVB HQ. We deliver these on Christmas Eve which means we can fill them to the brim with anything leftover from our Christmas orders.

Pay-it-Forward Fund

When we initially launched our pay-it-forward campaign, we were in between lockdowns and many of the people in our communities were furloughed, had been made redundant or were just really struggling to make ends meet. Lots of our lovely customers donated and we raised £1000 in the first month! This meant we were able to deliver over 50 boxes to local families who reached out to us and extra produce to Shipston Foodbank on a Saturday.

North Cotswold Foodbank

After things with Covid settled down, we wanted to find a way to support Foodbanks long-term in a sustainable and meaningful way. We collaborated with North Cotswold Foodbanks and have been able to subsidise and deliver nearly 3000 foodbank boxes across the North Cotswolds over the last few years and we are very grateful for the PIF fund donations that have enabled us to do this.

Fundraising Activities

We are always keen to support any fundraising activities in our community and while cash donations may not always be do-able, we are always more than happy to give veg away! We’ve given away raffle prizes and vouchers to countless local businesses and schools including Chipping Campden School, Ebrington Village Hall and Campden Home Nursing (to name a few!), so please do get in touch if you’re fundraising for a good cause within your community.

North Cotswold Community Awareness

We have been able to donate £100’s to North Cotswold Community Awareness who work with care workers to support over 200 children in the North Cotswolds who are officially classed as living in poverty. The families they support have often had to move suddenly due to domestic violence, bereavement or are on low-income so they use the funds to purchase items such as beds, clothing and kitchen utensils.