CALSTOCK parish is set to get its own community fridge in the New Year, to be sited behind the Co-op at Drakewalls beside the A390.

The initiative will start with a touring community larder visiting communities in the Tamar Valley every Wednesday from January 12.

Visiting Callington, Harrowbarrow, St Ann’s Chapel, Gunnislake and Calstock, the mobile community van will stop off for half an hour at a time to allow people to collect a bag of free food.

The community larder is being stocked with surplus food given away by local supermarkets which is past its ‘best before’ but not its ‘use by’ date. Fresh produce left unharvested from field edges is also being included via a countywide foraging scheme.

And later in the spring, the project will expand with a community fridge taking up permanent position in a covered area behind the store at the Co-op at Drakewalls, where people in need will be able to help themselves from the fridge, thanks to help and financial support from the Co-op, through their community champion.

Organiser Mai Evans, from community group Tamar Valley Community Food, has been working on setting up both the community larder and community fridge with help from Kevin Marsh from the Treverbyn Community Trust in Cornwall. The trust already runs successful touring community larders in the Indian Queens and St Austell areas.

‘Personally I’m just thrilled to be able to do something really hands on locally,’ she said.

‘The Treverbyn Commuity Trust has organised brilliant food projects including community larders and community fridges all over the county, but there is a gap here, although there is one in Liskeard and one in Saltash.

‘For a few years I have been trying to talk to different agencies in and around Callington about siting an open access community fridge which would complement the foodbank.

‘Nobody else was doing it, so I finally grasped the nettle earlier in the year.’

She was looking for somewhere permanent to site a community fridge, when she spotted a post from the community champion at the Co-op store at Drakewalls about how they were looking to set up a community fridge.

‘As far as I’m aware there isn’t another Co-op store in the country that has a community fridge. It will be sited behind their shop which is absolutely the best place in the vicinity and the Co-op is paying for the electricity,’ said Mai.

‘It is wonderful. It will be installed as soon as we can get the funding together we will purchase the actual fridge and build a wooden housing around it.

‘We do need quite a few volunteers to run it, so I am now looking for them.’

From Wednesday, January 12, the Community Larder will call weekly on a Wednesday at the B&M car park in Callington from 9-9.30am; Harrowbarrow and Metherell Village Hall in School Road from 10-10.30am; The Rifle Volunteer at St Ann’s Chapel from 10.45am-11.15am; Gunnislake car park from 11.30am-12 noon; and the public car park at Calstock Quay from 12.15pm-12.45pm.

The community larder project is being run on a trial basis for three months from January 12, calling on communities every Wednesday, and it is hoped that the fridge will be up and running around April time.

To find out more about getting involved in the community fridge you can email Mai at [email protected]