University donates 15 hampers and £1,200 to York community café

The University of York has raised £1,200 to donate to the food charity Yourcafé.

Donations came from sales of its Christmas cards, which were designed by students as part of a competition, and the University Nisa stores as part of their ‘Making a difference locally’ scheme.

The university regularly works with Yourcafé, a pay-as-you-go food bank.

The partnership includes donating surplus food and kitchen equipment, and raising both awareness and funds.

In recent months the university has donated more than 15 Christmas hampers and six crates of surplus food along with the money to Yourcafé.

Jon Greenwood, managing director of York Commercial Services, said: “We are proud to have been working with Yourcafé for a couple of years now, and we always try to help them in as many ways as possible by reducing food waste and helping the local community at the same time.

“In such uncertain times it’s great that we’ve been able to continue supporting Yourcafé and all of their amazing work, with the help of all students and staff at the University.

“We hope to continue supporting them in the future.”

Margaret Hattam and Margaret Hogg were inspired to start Yourcafé in April 2015.

“We decided to set up Yourcafé as we were both concerned about the issue of food waste in York and wanted to do something to reduce it,” says Margaret.

“We also wanted a project that would benefit the local community. For us, it’s about both tackling food waste and promoting community spirit.”

Due to Covid-19 restrictions Yourcafe has had to adapt, meaning members of the community are required to get in touch in advance, and inform the staff of how many people are in their household.

The team put together a bag of food for the household and this is collected from the Tang Hall Community Centre. Lisa Maunder-Wood said the money would be spent on purchasing essential food.