A WEST Somerset charity was celebrating on Tuesday (November 14) after receiving a coveted King’s Award for Voluntary Service (KAVS).
Equivalent to an MBE for individuals, KAVS is the highest award given to voluntary groups in the UK, celebrating outstanding work by charities.
This year, a KAVS has gone to the West Somerset Food Cupboard (WSFC), based in Minehead.
The awards are given annually, and usually only about one-third of the groups nominated nationally actually receive one.
However, in Somerset this year four charities were nominated and all were successful, with Refugee Aid From Taunton among the others.
Deputy Lord Lieutenant Jane Sedgman, who oversees the nomination process in Somerset on behalf of the Lord Lieutenant, said: “A clean sweep for Somerset is a remarkable achievement.
“The award is prestigious and is an encouragement for those who give so generously of their time and expertise.
“It follows an exacting assessment which is recognised and can also open the doors to funding streams which might otherwise prove very hard to access.
“So, there are practical benefits in addition to the emotional rewards.”
WSFC started in 2007 with the response of a church group to real food deprivation on their doorstep, and is now a charity in its own right.
It was recognised because it has an approach to delivery quite unlike other food bank organisations.
The charity has strong relationships with about 25 key frontline agencies, which between them are in daily touch with the most troubled and deprived people in their community.
WSFC relies on those agencies to identify need and to collect and deliver food boxes or parcels to people in need.
Not only does this mean the food cupboard is likely to be reaching the people most in need, but it also helps to link them to an engagement with agencies best placed to help them address and move on from the issues troubling them.
WSFC volunteers collect donated food, quality-control it, and sort it into emergency boxes which are designed to feed a family of four for three days, or bags for single people with no access to cooking facilities.
Remarkably, they are accessible every hour of every day of the year, and about 100 are distributed every month.
WSFC manager Ali Sanderson said: “We are delighted and honoured to receive the King’s Award for Voluntary Services.
“We are fortunate to have more than 50 volunteers on the team and we are very grateful to every one of them for generously contributing their time, skills, and energy.
“They are the reason that we are able to continue to support those in greatest need in this community each week.
“So, it is fantastic to have the team’s efforts acknowledged in this way.”
WSFC distributed 124 emergency food parcels last month, taking the total this year to 1,217, compared to 976 at the same time last year.
Ms Sanderson said: “We thank all the local organisations that we partner with to get food to those in greatest need.
“And it is our volunteer team, operational and trustees volunteers, who keep all this going week in, week out, so a big thank you to every one of them, as always, for their unique and much appreciated contribution.”
Items are now being collected for Christmas parcels which will be distributed in the first week of December.
Ms Sanderson said West Somerset was ranked as within the worst 20 per cent for food affordability across England and had seen a year-on-year increase of 20per cent in the number of emergency food parcels distributed.
WSFC also operates a Local pantry on Tuesdays which is part of a network of nine Pantries in Somerset, which recently won the Fareshare South West Social Impact Award for Community and Sustainability.
Organisations which want to be considered for next year’s KAVS can find all the information they need here. Nominations for 2025 awards will open on June 1, 2024