Foodshare Kerry
FOODSHARE KERRY is an innovative and enterprising project based in Tralee that is committed to salvaging quality surplus food from supermarkets and food producers to make it available to charities. This project is just over 2 years in operation and has already prevented 9 tonnes of food waste from reaching the landfill.
The Community Support Fund has played its own part in helping this business having recently allocated funds to Foodshare Kerry enabling them to enhance their accounts and stock management system. A presentation was also given by Foodshare Kerry at a recent meeting of Kerry County Council.
Robert Carey of Foodshare Kerry said the business does not have any core funding in the sense it doesn’t have an agency that funds it on a yearly basis which makes a source like CSF all the more important.
“We were able to get work done on our stock system and IT management thanks to CSF which is extremely useful to us as we’re now dealing with quite a substantial amount of food stock,” said Robert.
“It’s also an easy source of funding to access and it is flexible in terms of what you can do with the funds. The people overseeing the distribution of the funds are also very efficient. It’s a very useful community service,” he added. CASTLEISLAND Chamber Alliance was established in October 2015 and in just a few years its members have invested a huge amount of time and effort for the greater good of Castleisland. Their core objective is to enhance the social and economic vibrancy of Castleisland and make it a great place to live and work. Through Community Support Funding the Chamber have channelled vital funds into projects that benefit both the town’s social and commercial structures.
Patricia Walsh is Chairperson of Castleisland Chamber Alliance and she said CSF is vital for the town in that, for example, it has helped them put up the Christmas lights, provide for paving around the Carnegie Building - an emerging shared office space and future business hub in the town, while funds for signage at the new Con Houlihan Trail have also been provided.
Castleisland also benefited from Strategic CSF as this funding leveraged over €80,000 from the Town & Village Renewal Scheme in 2017, which enabled KCC in conjunction with the Castleisland Chamber to bring the old library in Castleisland back into Community use.
“CSF is very beneficial to a town like Castleisland where not many sources of funding are available. For us the CSF has been the first port of call as a funding stream,” said Patricia.
“It’s also a very approachable fund in that there is always someone available to help with applications and they will give you a full step-bystep account of what to do,” she added.