Maya’s Community Support Centre operates a food bank for anyone who needs our support. The policy of no judgement means that you don’t need to prove that you need to use a food bank. We only ask that you only take what you need and ensure that there is enough to go around.
In August of 2024 we launched a Sunday afternoon (6pm) food bank in Canterbury Click here for more info on this. All other food banks are run from 20 High Street Herne Bay, CT6 5LH
Dry / Long Life / Tinned Food Bank Fresh / Supermarket Surplus Food bank Christmas Ingredients Easter Egg Give Away Canterbury Food Bank
Dry / Long Life / Tinned Food Bank
Maya’s Dry Food bank ( Tinned / Long life food). This runs from 2pm – 3pm on Monday and Thursday from the Community Café (20 High Street) – This is manned by volunteers (just like all of our services). We also do emergency dry food parcels on a daily basis if there is an emergency (such as being displaced due to house fire, flood, re-housed, domestic abuse situations etc). In an emergency please contact us . The stock we give out is either donated items or items we have purchased from local supermarkets (from the public donations we receive), some examples of items we include in the parcels are ; tinned protein, sugar, pasta, sauces, toiletries, household cleaning items, long life milk etc and is funded entirely by donations from local businesses and individuals who visit our community cafe or free shop. If you would like to donate towards this please click here (any donation is gratefully received and helps directly to feed those in need in our community). These food parcels are designed to be emergency stop gaps to help fill the cupboards with tins of love and kindness . We have a daily Fresh Supermarket Surplus food bank running at 9pm which you can also attend everyday / any day of the year if needed (details below).
If you have any extra tins or food in your cupboards which you aren’t using please bring it down and donate it to our food bank so that we can make sure we are have enough to feed those in need when they visit us.
Some businesses have kindly chosen to donate towards our food bank (with either supermarket vouchers , a standing order each month , one off BACs payment or they have gone to the shops and filled up their trolly / van and brought it to us). We are very grateful for any donations to our food bank, it can be food , toiletries, Hygene products, baby food / formula / nappies, cleaning products etc as well as contraceptives.
If you see any of our collection bins (shown in one of the images to your left) please use them to donate any items. Also if you want to request one of our bins for your place of work please Contact Us.
Fresh / Supermarket Surplus Food bank running 365 days a year
Maya’s Fresh / Supermarket Surplus food bank runs every day of the year (and twice on Sundays). We are registered with three national schemes (Caboodle, Neighbourly and Fareshare) and collect over 130 slots from local supermarkets per week. We collect from the following stores ; MacDonalds, KFC, Sainsburys, Aldi, Co-op, M & S, Tesco, Sainsbury etc. Our army of volunteers give up not only their own time but fuel to bring food to our food bank every day of the year to ensure that there is enough food to feed the families that are waiting every night at the Community cafe at 9pm. In the summer of 2024 we opened a second location for our surplus food bank running one in Canterbury at 6pm every sunday as well as the nightly 9pm food bank in Herne Bay. The national schemes we collect through give us statistics based on the amount of food that is scanned out by the supermarket as surplus. In 2023 this showed that we fed over 40,000 people, providing the ingredients to make 581 meals every day. All of this food would have gone to landfill if it were not for our volunteers giving up their time to collect and make it available for families in need.
In 2024 we were given two Awards (Food Bank of the Year and BBC Make A Difference Green Award for our CO2 savings on surplus food and textiles. For more information on these awards please click here.
We are always looking for volunteers to help (either collect food or to help in the food bank to arrange the food when it arrives and hep with the distribution). It is hard work but very rewarding click here if you would like to know more about joining our volunteering team.
Christmas Ingredients
Maya’s Christmas Dinner Ingredients giveaway started December 2022. During the height of the cost of living crisis many families were faced with rising mortgage / rent costs and heating bills which were all increasing faster than wages or benefits increases. This left many families in a really challenging situation and with Christmas approaching had to choose between not giving their children a celebration on Christmas Day or getting into debt. Maya found local businesses were happy to sponsor ingredients and three days before Christmas she arranged for over 400 families to receive everything they would need on Christmas Day, such as; vegetables , meat, gravy, stuffing, mince pies, christmas pudding. Since then this has become an annual event feeding more people each year, local taxi companies joined the throng of volunteers helping Maya. to give out the food. They drove food parcels locally to those who couldn’t get out of the house , making sure that no one who needed our support was left hungry on Christmas Day.
Maya also believes that no one should be lonely on Christmas Day. The Community Cafe is open every Christmas Day to provide a free Christmas dinner for anyone that would like to celebrate with others.
This wonderful event only works because of the generosity of local businesses and our volunteers (who give up many hours of their time to help prepare and distribute food to such a large amount of people on one day). If you would like to be involved please Click Here to Contact Us
Yearly Easter Egg Give Away
Maya believes that no child should ever be disadvantaged if we as a community can come together and support each other no one should have to go without. Imagine it’s approaching Easter and your child and their friends are all discussing how many Easter Eggs they will get this year. If you are struggling to balance your household income with the rising costs this could be a nightmare where you either need to explain to your child that they won’t have any Easter Eggs this year or put yourself into debt trying to make sure they have an enjoyable holiday. In 2023 Maya organised a Free event at the community cafe whereby local children could meet The Easter bunny and receive a Free Easter Egg. People were queuing up the street and the feeling in the air was electric. In 2024 Maya approached a number of local businesses for sponsorship and amassed 2,000 Easter Eggs which were given away to anyone who needed them on Good Friday.
Maya and her volunteers wanted to thank the kind businesses that donated Easter Eggs, she filmed a number of videos for social media to spread some love, joy and humility at Easter, Click on the company name below to view the video.
Metro bank Jewsons IFun Family Amusement Centre
AlaTurka. Phil Carr Grape vine
Canterbury Food Bank
On the 4th August 2024 Maya’s Food Bank came to Canterbury. On a Sunday our volunteers collect 20 slots of supermarket surplus food from supermarkets, we collected ; Lidl Bakery, three Sainsburys Stores, three Tesco’s, two M & S stores, four Aldi stores, Pret and Cornish bakery and five Co-op stores. As the larger supermarkets close at 4pm and 5pm we have the scope to set up a pop up food bank in Canterbury in the Northgate area.
Initially The Charity Shop (Shelter – 51 – 52 Northgate Canterbury) reached out and invited us to host the food bank outside their shop. However when the weather turned for the worse we were kindly allowed to use the facilities at City Space who are a community centre at 47 Northgate , Canterbury, CT1 1BE. In the first seven weeks of running this food bank the word spread amongst the Canterbury District and we counted over 500 families using this resource in the first seven weeks.
