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Irish car and van makers - prick up your ears because here's a chance to do some good. Dublin-based food charity FoodCloud, which distributes meals and food to families and persons living in poverty all across the city, needs a van to help with their hugely important charitable work.
The Food Rescue Project was setup by FoodCloud to redistribute food from supermarkets and other sources that would otherwise go to waste, and it's been a huge success. The equivalent of 40,000 meals have so far been redistributed by the charity, and over Christmas, the system was vital in bringing some much needed cheer to families living on close to nothing.
Fiona Kelly, FoodCloud's volunteer manager, has seen the real power of the project in bringing volunteers, charities and retailers together in their local communities "Over Christmas week we had hundreds of turkey donations from Tesco and our volunteers delivered over 700kg or over 1,500 meals to local charities, one of our charities noted that it "made Christmas" for so many families that would not have had a turkey otherwise."
All that work was done with one small electric car, a Mitsubishi i-MIEV, donated by the ESB. While the i-MIEV has been hugely useful, it's a small car and can only carry eight crates of food per journey - in spite of which, FoodCloud uses it to transport more than half a tonne of food every week.
So, FoodCloud needs a van - something with the capacity to carry lots more food, to lots more people who so desperately need it. "We see a huge opportunity to rescue more food and get it to communities who need it, but to do this we need transport" says Kelly. "We're looking for vans to help us grow, it's a great opportunity for any business to engage with a wide volunteer network and to be associated with an exciting and worthwhile project."
Anyone wishing to help out can contact FoodCloud on 01 5313478