A Fife school has set up its own community fridge, in a bid to support nearby residents and reduce food waste.
The Leuchars Larder runs from within Leuchars Primary School and supports the village’s community and people living in neighbouring village, Guardbridge.
It was set up by teacher Tony Russell and success has boomed since it opened in September.
On its first week the larder had 12 visitors using its services, that’s now up to around 50.
And a large queue to get into starts to form around 15 minutes before opening.
Tony had the idea after researching how poverty impacts a child’s learning in school.
He said: “I was thinking about how I could be more proactive and how the school could be more proactive in reducing the impact of poverty.
“It took months to get set up – it was last February I got the ball rolling.
“We needed to have our space assessed, secure funding, and I even needed to do a food hygiene certificate.”
Determined to start the project off on the right foot, Tony volunteered at other nearby community fridges to understand how they operate.
And he enlisted the help of nine eager pupils from the upper school to help with setting up the larder for visits.
Tony said: “The upper school did mini projects around the larder, learning about food waste, allergies and they had a poster competition to promote it.
“The pupils are not present when the community come in to collect food but that is up for discussion so that might change.
“Some children come in with their parents to use the larder.”
Food is delivered weekly from Dundee based Fare Share, a charity which sources food close to its sell-by date from local supermarkets, which would otherwise got to landfills.
And stocks are topped up with donations from staff.
Residents of Leuchars and Guardbridge only are invited to use Leuchars Larder every Monday between 3.15pm to 4.45pm.
Limits to number of food items apply under a policy of promoting fairness and signposting can be facilitated.
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