Text: Hanne Eide Andersen
Photo: Andreas Dirdal Kydland/Sandnesposten
“This is a milestone in our work to establish the Rogaland food bank,” says chairman of the board Vidar Solevåg.
“The support is crucial to get the project up and running. This is a watershed for us,” says the excited chairman, Vidar Solevåg.
“That the Kavli Trust advances 1 million of the support for us to spend this year, meaning that we’ve met our short-term goal for funding and, given that our other grant applications succeed, we are able to get started. Now, we can direct our efforts at getting operational, while we work on securing long-term funding.”
The Kavli Trust are excited to contribute
“We are very pleased to welcome the Rogaland food bank into the community of Kavli Trust-supported food banks,” says Inger Elise Iversen, CEO of the Kavli Trust.
“Rogaland is an important county for the Kavli Trust, due to the dairy producer Q-mererienes presence in Jæren. We’re pleased to be able to use the profits generated by our dedicated employees in the area to give something back to the country via this charity. We are proud to support the Rogaland food bank, and are looking forward to the opening,” says Inger Elise Iversen.
Qualified recipients
The Rogaland food bank will, in the same way as the other food banks, redistribute surplus food from the food industry to charities that serve and distribute food to disadvantaged people in Rogaland.
Those receiving the food are all qualified recipients in keeping with the joint principles of the Norwegian food banks; the principles stipulate that recipients must be organisations and projects that are not fully funded by the government and who do work to help disadvantaged people.
From the left, Vidar Solevåg, chairman of the board of the Rogaland food bank; the Salvation Army’s representative in the project group; and Tor Jan Bredenbekk from the organization Hjerte for Sandnes. Bredenbekk is also the future CEO of the Rogaland food bank. Photo: Rogaland food bank
Among the organisations are the different centres and corps of the Salvation Army, and projects such as Varmestuen in Stavanger (providing support to addicts in Stavanger), as well as a free café called No13, which is run by Hjerte for Sandnes.
“The Church City Mission plans to open a similar type of café in Sola later in 2018,” Vidar Solevåg informs.
A resource for charities
The surplus food is sought-after in Rogaland. In Skudeneshavn, the Salvation Army and other local volunteers are running the Heart Café, which is similar to the food bank. In Haugesund, there is, in addition to the Salvation Army’s project, an IOGT-project called T3 that serves 200 hot meals and distributes 120 grocery bags a week. Evangelisenteret has a project in Jørpeland which serves 120 hot meals and distributed 60 grocery bags a week.
“The food bank will be a resource for these projects, helping make sure that they’ll have reliable access to surplus food, thus helping the avoid spending their own resources and funds on buying food,” says Vidar Solevåg.
“In addition to these, several other organisations and projects are doing similar work for disadvantaged people, where providing food is an element to the service,” says Solevåg.
Reducing food waste
“Another goal is to help reduce food waste by salvaging food that otherwise would have been thrown out, and channel this food into situations where it will satisfy people who do not have sufficient resources to buy themselves the food they need.”
The food bank in Rogaland is founded by Evangeliesenteret, Hjerte for Sandnes and the Rogaland division of the Salvation Army. Stavanger municipality is represented in the project group, but the municipality is not a part of the charity.
With the lion’s share of the start-up funding secured, the charity is now working to negotiate rental agreements for venue, furniture and equipment. This work runs parallel to working to procure more long-term funding.
“We’re now much closer to the goal of opening in May,” says Vidar Solevåg.
The Rogaland food bank is the fifth food bank that the Kavli Trust has helped establish.
https://kavlifondet.no/en/category/projects-en/humanitarian-projects-en/food-bank-norway/
Read more about the Kavli Trust and our support for the food banks here
Top: The project group represented by (from the left) Merethe Aanestad, Evangeliesenteret; Vidar Solevåg, the Salvation Army; Wenche Lillebø and Tor Jan Bredenbekk, Hjerte for Sandnes.