Usk Food Kitchen gets a helping hand this Christmas from Welsh Water’s Community Fund

Usk Food Kitchen runs twice a week delivering hot food to over 40 homes in the area. Run by local volunteers, they rely on food and financial donations to ensure that anyone that requires a hot meal receives one. This year the group have received financial support for their good work from Welsh Water as part of their £10,000 Community Fund for the Usk area.

The fund for the town and surrounding areas was created to support the community and forms part of the not-for-profit water company’s £10 million pounds investment in the area between now and 2025 to upgrade the town’s wastewater system.

Gloria Dolan – founder of Usk Food Kitchen, said: “The Food Kitchen started in May 2020 to help people in need because I’d heard about a family in England who couldn’t afford to feed their children because they lost their job. I thought, if we have people like that around here, we need to make sure that we can feed them.

“We find that most of the people who have our meals are elderly, live alone or have different disabilities. We also provide meals to people in financial distress, have learning disabilities, mental-health issues, or are unemployed. They just have to ask for a free meal, and they get one.

“Every meal that we make here is prepared with fresh vegetables, so we make sure that they have fresh, wholesome food. It’s like we wrap our arms around them with the food! The meals are a good size, and we often get feedback that they’ve lasted over several portions. The feedback we get is always very positive indeed. The money donated by the Community Fund helped towards food costs, cleaning materials and the upkeep of cooking materials.”

Welsh Water’s Community Fund is available to local community groups or organisations who can apply for sums of between £250 and £1,000 to support their activities. This might include community projects, events or environmental projects.

The additional fund has been made available to the local people of Usk as a thank you while the company is carrying out major investment work in the area. It forms part of the company’s wider Community Fund that supports community initiatives throughout its operational area.

The investment work being carried out in Usk will improve the way the wastewater serving the town operates, which in turn will help improve the quality of the water in the river Usk.

The work is being carried out in three phases, with the first phase almost complete at Usk Sewer pumping station near the cricket club. This involves installing screens to remove things such as rags and wet wipes the station receives. The company are currently planning for the next phase which will be to increase the amount of waste pumped to the nearby wastewater treatment works to reduce the number of spills from the station’s combined storm overflow (CSO). The final phase of the work will be to increase capacity at the treatment works itself.

Steve Wilson, Welsh Water’s Managing Director for Wastewater Services said: “Delivering this investment scheme to help protect river water quality in Usk is a key priority for us. We are committed to play our part to achieve this, and our Community Fund enables us to support projects and initiatives which play such an essential role in binding together communities like the one in Usk”.

Any community group, club or organisation wishing to apply to the grant can do so by visiting here.