A CHARITY based in Caernarfon is using surplus food from local supermarkets to provide healthy meals for young homeless people.

GISDA helps vulnerable young people aged between 14 and 25, improve their quality of life and aims to ensure they are not disadvantaged in society.

Established in 1985 as Grŵp Ieuenctid Sengl Digartref Arfon (Young, Single, Homeless Group of Arfon), the charity provides support and accommodation. It works with a variety of single young people, single parents, expectant mothers, couples and families.

As part of its work GISDA runs a hugely successful Breakfast Club, which is supported by surplus food provided by Tesco and food charity FareShare under the supermarket’s Community Food Connection scheme. The scheme links charities and community groups to Tesco stores and alerts them to unsold food items available at the end of the day.

Andy Smalley, Team Leader at GISDA, said the food the charity has received since signing up to Community Food Connection had been hugely beneficial to the work it carries out.

"The food donations have not only allowed the young people to have access to much needed food, it has also supported our hostel community to be more involved with each other," he said.

"It has also provided a positive, creative challenge of creating nutritious meals with the range of ingredients collected from Tesco.

"While the food donations have supported individuals who have limited income, they’ve also greatly helped individuals who are waiting for benefit claims to be processed.

"We have supported a number of families who have accessed the food to allow them to use their income on family days out with their children.”

Anwen McKenzie, engagement worker at GISDA, who also cooks the food for the breakfast club, said getting together for breakfast has made a real difference to people’s lives.

"They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, at GISDA our Breakfast Club is just that," she said.

"Not only do we provide nutritious food, we also create an atmosphere that our users crave. We discuss what types of meals to make, we prepare and cut ingredients and make the meals – it is almost therapeutic."

Partly funded by the Welsh Government, GISDA completely relies on the food items provided by the scheme to provide nutritious meals for young individuals and families.

Tesco Community Food Connection is the largest supermarket food redistribution scheme in the UK – providing around 350,000 meals worth of surplus food to charities and community groups each week. To date more than 25million meals have been donated to good causes across the country through the scheme.