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One in seven people in the UK is at risk of going hungry. Low incomes, a lack of jobs (particularly for people who are disabled or who have caring responsibilities) and high housing costs are just some of the drivers.

Not surprisingly, the number of people needing emergency support from foodbanks has doubled over the last five years. Foodbanks in the Trussell network gave out 2.9 million emergency food parcels last year. Over 1 million of those were for children.

Here in London, foodbank use has reached an all-time high. At least 454,750 food parcels were distributed in London between 2023 and 2024.

Hunger in Hammersmith

The rising need is a situation that Phil Storey, Chief Executive of Hammersmith & Fulham Foodbank, knows all too well. He shares, “The cost-of-living crisis hit us in winter 2022; our numbers doubled within the space of three months. We went from feeding around 1,000 people a month to suddenly feeding 2,000 people a month. That meant we needed double the number of vans, double the amount of food and so on. In the winter of 2023, the number went up by another 500, so we were feeding 2,500 people a month for most of 2024.”

The foodbank ended up feeding 30,147 people across the borough last year. As one of its clients shared, “Without you I would have fallen apart, words can’t explain what you have done for me. I was sinking in quicksand and you gave me the branch to pull me out.”

The crucial role of volunteers

Hammersmith & Fulham Foodbank could not survive without the help of volunteers. Phil says, “The vast majority of what we deliver relies on volunteers. Our foodbank sessions are run by a volunteer team. We’ve got volunteer drivers. We’ve got volunteers in our warehouse who sort all the food. We’ve got volunteer admin. We’ve got volunteer fundraisers. Our charity is rooted in the idea of local people volunteering to support other local people who are struggling.”

Volunteering with Hammersmith & Fulham Foodbank

The charity is always in need of more volunteers. You can volunteer on a regular or ad hoc basis. Phil adds, “We get a real mix of people helping, including students. A lot of our volunteers gain really valuable skills, which they can then take into the workplace. We can add to people’s CVs, give them skills, give them experience and put them in touch with their local community.”

Hammersmith United Charities’ grant

We’ve provided several grants to the foodbank over the last few years. The most recent grant was for £6,185 towards the cost of training volunteers. Phil explains, “As a professional organisation, our volunteers need to meet minimum standards in areas such as food hygiene and safeguarding. However, the HUC grant means we can invest in additional courses. We’ve been able to ask volunteers, ‘What areas would you like to develop in; what training will be useful to you?’ and proactively respond to that need.”

Helping people to get back on their feet

One crucial role the foodbank plays is signposting. An assessor from Citizens Advice Hammersmith and Fulham (CAHF) joins the client’s first session to discuss what support the person is entitled to.

The foodbank also directs clients to other organisations that might be able to help, and volunteers are on hand to talk about the challenges that clients are experiencing. Phil says, “Training our volunteers to have those more in-depth conversations is vital. While 66% of people only need our help one to three times, others have more complex, long-term problems. Training in areas like mental health and domestic violence helps our volunteers to have conversations that get to the root cause of people’s difficulties. By focusing on addressing those root causes, we can help people to get back on their feet quicker.”

As one foodbank client says, “There is always someone to talk to, on top of some help with food, and when you leave, you feel more positive, uplifted – that there are some good people in the world that care about you as a person.”

The charity is also running de-escalation training, so that volunteers can better support people who are experiencing extreme stress and anxiety.

Support your local foodbank

As part of a network of foodbanks, Hammersmith & Fulham Foodbank is able to buy food at wholesale prices, so your money will have the greatest impact if you make a direct donation. You can also donate food at one of the many drop-off points across Hammersmith. You’ll find a full list of the items most needed here.

Phil says, “We have about 12 tonnes of food going out every month. Donations, of food, money or time, are the only thing keeping us going.”

Hammersmith & Fulham Community Compass

If you work for a charity or community group in Hammersmith & Fulham, please consider signing up to Community Compass. It’s a way for people to find the support they need quickly. As Phil says, “There are so many amazing agencies in Hammersmith & Fulham, but often they aren’t aware of all the other help that’s out there. Community Compass is a digital signposting platform aimed at residents, but it will also be useful for organisations. It means we can quickly and easily help somebody to connect with the breadth of support that is out there in our community.”

The voluntary sector makes life better for thousands of people in Hammersmith. From counselling to after-school clubs, the services offered by these organisations can be life changing.

We’ve been supporting grassroots causes for many years, by awarding Community Grants to groups that make a tangible impact to people’s lives, including those working to alleviate poverty, enrich children’s lives, and help some of the most vulnerable people in Hammersmith.

Our most recent grant round in July 2025 saw 11 groups awarded grants totalling £108,560. The full list of grant holders is as follows:

White City Theatre Project (WCTP): £15,000

Many organisations need to raise funds to help cover core costs and we’re happy to support this. WCTP is putting its grant towards expenses such as office overheads and practitioner fees, in order to run community youth theatre projects in Hammersmith.

Woman’s Trust: £15,000

Our grant will help Woman’s Trust to deliver 1-to-1, trauma-informed counselling for women in Hammersmith who are affected by domestic abuse. Approximately 13 women will benefit from a combined total of 176 counselling sessions. Read our Woman’s Trust case study here.

For Brian: £15,000

For Brian is using some of its grant to provide a dance programme for people with dementia. The CIC is spending the rest on accessible transport, volunteer expenses and office costs. You can read our interview with For Brian’s founder here.

Urbanwise.London: £14,961

The educational charity will deliver outdoor, nature-based learning sessions for children and their parents at Wormwood Scrubs Open Space each week. It will also run after-school clubs, a summer family event and trips out.

Hammersmith & Fulham Law Centre: £10,000

With the help of this grant, Hammersmith & Fulham Law Centre will provide advice and representation to people on a low income who have had their employment rights infringed. For example, clients could be victims of workplace discrimination and harassment, have experienced trafficking or been unfairly dismissed from their job.

FORWARD: £9,985

The grant will fund the support and supervision of four local community workers, and the training of 10 maternity champions in Shepherd’s Bush, White City and Old Oak.

The RENA Initiative: £7,684

The CIC was set up to ‘Recognise, Empower and Nurture Artists (RENA)’. Our grant will help The RENA Initiative to run its ‘HeArty’ project – bringing health and wellbeing practitioners together with artists to deliver workshops, befriending group outings and mentoring.

Women Aid and Empowerment: £7,000

More women will be able to enjoy weekly classes in chair-based yoga, chair-based exercise and Zumba. Participants will also have longer to socialise after the classes, and be served tea, coffee and snacks. Read our case study on Women Aid and Empowerment.

Amici Dance Theatre Company: £6,000

11 young Amici members who have a disability will be supported to take part in a theatrical production. The grant will help to ensure that their access and travel needs are met and that they have a support worker.

Somali Parents: £5,400

Somali Parents will be increasing its director’s hours from eight to 16 per week to enable more effective administration, project coordination, bid writing, and partnership work.

WiggleWaggle World CIC: £2,530

WiggleWaggle CIC is running 36 Zumba sessions at Family Hub Old Oak Community Centre, two community fun days and a community Christmas party. Our grant will contribute towards the costs.

How to apply for a HUC Community Grant

We’re particularly keen to hear from smaller, local organisations in our area of benefit, which have a strong connection to their community and a working knowledge of the local area. Your project can be one-off or ongoing. What interests us most is the difference you’ll make to the local people most in need.

Please complete our Eligibility Quiz before applying and then contact us at grants@hamunitedcharities.com to tell us about your project. We like to talk to applicants before you apply to get a better understanding of what you’re doing and answer any questions you may have.

Find out more

• Learn more about our Community Grants
• Read our grants FAQs
• Hear from other organisations we’ve supported
• Read more about how to apply

Drama can be hugely beneficial to children and young people. As well as being a lot of fun, it can boost confidence and self-esteem, increase communication skills, and encourage teamwork, collaboration and empathy.

However, drama and other expressive arts are not always taught in schools. Between 2010 and 2023, there was a 42% decline in expressive arts GCSE entries. More than 40% of English state schools stopped offering music and drama GCSEs altogether. Much of the decline is due to cuts in funding, with schools in disadvantaged areas struggling to make up the financial shortfall.

Angela Wachner is the Interim Executive Director and Co-CEO of The Alternative Theatre Company, which trades as the Bush Theatre. She says, “Drama provision in schools is being eroded across the country, so there’s a real need for better access. It’s also clear that people from a global majority or lower income background are underrepresented in all parts of the industry.”

Opening up the world of theatre

The Bush Theatre is working to ensure more young people are able to access drama and theatre, whether that’s through acting, writing or being able to attend live performances.

The charity runs the Bush Theatre and has two Young Companies – one for teenagers aged 14 to 17 and the other for 18 to 25-year-olds. Both meet weekly. Alongside acting, the young people explore storytelling, creative writing and different roles in the theatre industry.

One Bush Young Company member, Tabby, shares, “I have grown in self-confidence hugely. I have more trust in myself and my ideas and have also developed my skills. Everyone at Bush is so genuine and it really encourages me to be the best version of myself.”

The Bush Theatre also offers work experience opportunities and runs workshops for local schools and youth groups.

Angela says, “As well as the theatrical element, it’s about participants exploring their creativity, whether that’s through drama or dance or music or something else. People, particularly younger people, are multi-skilled; they’re dancers and they make magazines and do art and write poetry and all sorts of things. That’s really exciting. We don’t ever want to hinder that creativity by saying, ‘This is how you do theatre.’”

Removing financial barriers

Financial challenges can often make it difficult, if not impossible, for young people to access theatre and drama outside school. Angela says, “Most of our community projects, including our Young Companies, are free and sometimes we’ll offer financial support to engage with a programme. We don’t want to add any additional barriers to accessing drama; there are already so many barriers in place, including a perception that theatres are only for certain people.”

West London schools are offered free tickets to performances at the Bush Theatre. As well as attending the performance, pupils are able to take part in a pre-show workshop and a Q&A with the cast and creative team.

Championing unheard voices

The Bush Theatre’s mission is to “champion, uplift and support unheard voices.” The charity is mainly led by people from a global majority background and it platforms diverse cultures, stories and identities. Angela says, “A lot of opportunities have disappeared in the sector since COVID, and in the context of an increasingly more challenging economic climate. Many people have had to leave the arts because they can’t rely on it for a career anymore. Our charitable aim is to be the giver of opportunities for people so they can take their first step into theatre, or become an audience member, or find out what their own creativity looks like. We’re really conscious of not losing the small gains that we’ve made in terms of increasing diversity within the sector across multiple different metrics, and we want to continue our progress.”

Springboarding careers

Support doesn’t end once a young person has aged out of the Bush Young Companies. Many former young members join the Bush Writers’ Group or take part in adult productions. Six Bloom Bursaries are offered each year, enabling young people who are particularly talented to access financial support and mentorship.

Angela says, “Coral Wylie, who was a member of our Bush Young Company, has just had their debut play staged, which is testament to how well our programmes link together to create a pipeline for people to progress their careers and explore their creativity.

“Our work as a producer of new plays is well-known by local and national audiences. Perhaps less understood, is that to provide everything required to nurture our artists and audiences, we must actively fundraise to secure over half a million pounds every year. We are incredibly grateful to all those who give what they can to support all we hope to achieve together.”

Hammersmith United Charities

We awarded the Bush Theatre a £5,000 grant towards its community work, helping to fund opportunities for 443 young people. Angela shares, “Hammersmith United Charities are really easy to work with. They’re very engaged with the work we’re doing and very supportive.”

Get involved

You can find out more about the Bush Theatre on its website. If you’re interested in joining one of the Bush Young Companies, please email community@bushtheatre.co.uk.

Turtle Key Arts was founded in 1989 as an accessible arts space. Producer Niamh Hanns explains, “The idea was to create an accessible arts venue where people could see performances from a range of artists. While we no longer have that venue, accessibility is still at the heart of everything that we do.”

The charity is now a performance arts company working with a portfolio of dance, circus and theatre companies. Many of the freelance artists it works with have a disability or face other barriers to participating in the arts. Amici Dance Theatre Company, for instance, is a unique inclusive dance theatre company for disabled and non-disabled performers. Amici’s shows challenge conventional attitudes about disability.

Every production includes outreach events, and Turtle Key Arts also runs regular education and participation projects, with a focus on including people who are often excluded from the arts, such as those who are neurodiverse or have a disability. Key Club, for example, is a monthly arts and social club for 18–30-year-olds on the autism spectrum, while Turtle Song is a singing and songwriting project for people living with dementia and their companions and carers.

Unlocking creative potential

Niamh says, “The UK is still in a period of austerity where the arts aren’t prioritised and where there are so many barriers to accessing the arts. That has an impact on people’s wellbeing and ability to grow in confidence and to be themselves.

“At Turtle Key Arts, our tagline is ‘Unlocking creative potential’. Everyone has something valuable to bring to the world artistically. Sometimes you need support in doing that, which is why organisations like ours are so important.”

Removing barriers to the arts

To Turtle Key Arts, ‘accessibility’ isn’t just about removing physical barriers. As Ellie Park, a producer at Turtle Key Arts, shares, “We want to remove as many barriers as possible. All our outreach projects are free to participants, as price is often a barrier, especially for younger people. With our dementia project, if transport is a barrier to people participating, then we’ll provide that.”

One barrier that the charity aims to tackle is lack of confidence, particularly for people who are disabled, disadvantaged or socially excluded. Niamh says, “The arts are often seen as something that only certain groups can take part in, so people sometimes think, ‘It’s not for me; that’s not something I can do.’ We make sure that our projects are as inclusive as possible by putting things in place so that people can have that creative output.”

As an example, one of the charity’s projects is Key Words, which supports dyslexic young people to write a play. Participants dictate the lines and actions to scribes, so if they lack confidence in writing things down, that doesn’t become a barrier to being creative.

The impact of Turtle Key Arts’ work cannot be overemphasised. Being able to participate in the arts can improve mental wellbeing, reduce isolation and increase confidence. As the daughter of a Turtle Song participant shared, “I cried silent tears of sorrow, of pride, of happiness, of loss, of admiration, of gratitude and more. Thank you for bringing joy to my mum, for accepting her just as she is and for making her truly happy. I have not seen her smile like that for a long time, today she was my beautiful, intelligent, kind & caring, fun loving mum again.”

The JOY festival

One of the highlights in Turtle Key Arts’ calendar is JOY – a disability arts festival for people in West London, which it runs in partnership with Hammersmith and Fulham Arts Festival and the Lyric theatre. JOY is led by a steering group of disabled artists and practitioners. The festival was relaunched this year, and Turtle Key Arts commissioned a music piece by and for disabled artists. Niamh explains, “A group of disabled people who are musicians or who have an interest in music are working with a professional composer, director and musician to create a new song cycle on the theme of joy. It will then be performed at the Lyric.” Ellie adds, “The participants are aged 18 to 70. It’s good to have something inclusive for all adults, as a lot of opportunities cut off at 25.”

The commission was funded with a grant from Hammersmith United Charities, and the piece was performed at the festival on 3rd July. Niamh says, “Hammersmith United Charities have been really supportive of us and our work on the festival over the years. It’s great to have a really engaged local funder.”

Find out more

If you’d like to take part in a Turtle Key Arts project, please visit the charity’s website: www.turtlekeyarts.org.uk