Waitrose & Partners Community Matters
We support good causes. You decide who gets what.

Online, Waitrose.com also shares a donation of £25,000 between 3 national causes. After checkout, you will be asked to vote for one of the national causes we are supporting. Each cause will receive a share according to the number of votes - just as we do in our branches.

Find out more about the good causes we support>

National causes we are currently supporting on Waitrose.com

Trussell Trust

The Trussell Trust supports a nationwide network of over 1,200 food bank centres across the UK, providing emergency food and support to people locked in poverty and campaigning for change so that in the future, no one needs to use a food bank.

As a nation, we expect no one should be left hungry or destitute. For too many people, there just isn’t enough money coming in to cover the rising costs of absolute essentials like food and housing.

Last Christmas, Mark and Elaine from south London turned to their local food bank for support when a problem with their benefits left them struggling to provide for their family on their wages alone.

“We got to the point where all the bills had gone out and we were left with hardly anything. My partner and I skipped meals but we always made sure the kids had something to eat. But before Christmas, we didn’t have enough income for six weeks.

“The food parcel was a life saver. It even had Christmas crackers and goodies in it. At the food bank I was welcomed with open arms and given so much support.”

Mark and Elaine are just one of thousands of families who needed to use a food bank last year. In the last five years, food bank use in our network has increased by 73% and we know that people referred to our food banks have an average weekly income after housing costs of just £50.

This isn’t right. The food banks in our network provide invaluable support to thousands of people in crisis every year – but they shouldn’t be needed.

With the support of Waitrose Community Matters and your vote, we can work together to make sure that in the future, no one needs to use a food bank. 

FareShare

FareShare exists because millions of people across the country are struggling to afford to eat, yet at the same time thousands of tonnes of good food goes to waste every week. A huge amount of energy, nutrients and water goes into growing, making and distributing our food, but 1.9 million tonnes is wasted by the food industry every year.

Meanwhile, 1 in 8 people in the UK are living in poverty, and a quarter of those who regularly go without meals are children.

People in food poverty don’t have continuous access to affordable, nutritious food. It includes people on low or no income, but also encompasses people affected by issues such as physical or mental illness, addiction, relationship breakdowns.

“Working with FareShare means we get a great variety of food. We take everything from tins to fresh meat as our families need everything. I don’t know what we’d do without FareShare. We might have to shut for a particular day. I don’t know what people would eat if we weren’t able to give them the food from FareShare.” Christine Connell, Volunteer at Ivy Street Community Centre.

For over 25 years FareShare has been working with the food industry to identify good quality, in date surplus food that can be redistributed to charities. This is enough food to create almost 46.5 million meals a year.

We squeeze as much social good out of surplus food as possible by distributing it to frontline charity and community groups across the UK – organisations that provide a vital safety net for thousands of vulnerable people across our society. By receiving food through FareShare, these organisations are better able to provide nutritious meals alongside life-changing support.

For every £1 donated we are able to distribute enough food to create four meals for those in need. 

The Silver Line

1.2 million older people in Britain struggle with severe loneliness and chronic isolation. The Silver Line aims to tackle this epidemic through the UK’s only 24-hour, free and confidential helpline specifically for older people, providing information, friendship, advice or just a simple chat. Callers may also be matched to one of our volunteer telephone friends for a regular weekly call. Jack is 96, and lives alone.

He survived being a prisoner of war on the Burma railway, and is an artist and a poet. He has lost mobility, and almost all his sight. He says: “It must be four years ago, I rang The Silver Line, because I’d had many lonely hours, many, many lonely hours. Since I lost my wife, Audrey, I have been living alone. We were married for 65 years, she meant everything to me. I have three sons, and I’m very proud of them all, but they have their own lives now and I just see them occasionally when they take me for a ride along the sea front. I’m taken out once a week in my wheelchair to go shopping. Otherwise I don’t get out. When I rang The Silver Line, I hoped I would hear a voice from the outside world. I felt very cut off, the war has left its mark on me. It was awful. I didn’t know what to do with myself - I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to go out.” The Silver Line matched Jack with a telephone friend volunteer, Hannah, who called him every week for over two years: “She’s a barrel of fun. Just to have a chat with someone, to hear a voice other than one’s own voice does mean a lot.

I would recommend anyone to get in touch with The Silver Line, loneliness comes out of the blue sometimes” With your vote we can ensure people like Jack will have somebody to speak to when they need it the most. 

Community Matters results

To see the results and amounts that we have donated to previous charities click here

Contact us

If you are a UK-registered national charity and would like to be considered for our Community Matters Online initiative then please email your applications to:

community.matters@waitrose.co.uk

Please give a brief outline of the work your charity does along with details of any current projects that you are seeking funding for. This should be no more than 500 words. The Community Matters Team will then only contact you if your application is successful or if they require further details.

If you are a local charity or not for profit organisation and you would like to be considered for Community Matters in one of our branches, please go to your local branch, complete a nomination form and hand it in at the Welcome Desk.  If you are successful the branch Community Matters Champion will be in touch.  All applications are held for 6 months.