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We know that many households have been feeling the financial impact of Covid-19. In response to this, we have launched The Mill Community Grocery in Bolton to help local residents with their weekly food shop.

We provide a great selection of healthy branded items that you’d expect to find at your local supermarket but for a fraction of the price. We’re run on a membership basis designed for anyone who is struggling to afford the everyday basics by offering a full selection of groceries for just £3.

We’ve even price matched a few of our standard shops against high street supermarkets and found that our members can save over £40 on each visit.

We know choosing the items you like for your family is really important and so we have thousands of products to select from each week with new lines added each day. Our members not only get to save on their food shop but they also get to play their part in helping to protect the environment. Lots of the items in our grocery have been given to us by local supermarkets and would have normally ended up going into landfill.

The food is all great, and there are many reasons why supermarkets have surplus food to donate. It may be there are packaging mistakes, errors with ordering or that the food that ends up too close to its ‘best before’ date for them to sell. So they’ve given it to the Community Grocery.

As we are reliant on what supermarkets donate to us we can’t guarantee what items we’ll have in stock for you on each visit, so you may find that you need to do a top up shop during the week for any key items you’re missing. We receive new collections every day and so to be the first to see what goodies we have in stock, make sure you follow your local Community Grocery Facebook or Instagram pages.

And there’s more. All of our members will be able to access loads of other benefits like job clubs, cooking classes, money management courses, mental wellbeing courses, parent/toddler sessions, youth activities, volunteering and much more.

How it works:

1. To become a member, just visit our grocery any time whilst we’re open (Mon - Fri 9:30am - 4:30pm) and we’ll get you signed up straight away and then walk you through your first shop. It’s £5 for 1 years membership and you can visit our grocery twice a week.

2. A standard shop in the grocery is £3 and at the start of the day we set limits on how much you can take from each section depending on how much supply we have. A normal £3 shop will typically fill 2-3 shopping bags include the following items:

• 1 Sliced Loaf of Bread
• 5 Portions of Fruit & Veg
• 5 Shelf Items (things like cereal, pasta, sauces, crisps, chocolate etc.)
• 2 Fridge Items
• 2 Frozen Items
• 2 Mix & Match Items (a selection of different tinned food)
• 1 Non-Food Item
• 1 PPE Item (masks or sanitiser)
• We also have some little extra items you can get on top of your shop
for £0.50. These include items like fresh milk or eggs.

3. All of our Community Groceries will also be running a variety of free services and events to get to know our members better and help support them with any specific needs. Once these go live, you can sign up for them in the grocery.

Trust Music supports young musicians in Bolton, helping them to access lessons, instrument hire and ensemble sessions. The charity also runs a series of £5 Music Sessions for adults in their Bolton Marketplace Studio led by professional tutors from Bolton Music Service. Members of the public are invited to participate in weekly sessions on instruments including the ukulele and guitar, alongside a rock-choir. Please e-mail ask@trustmusic.org.uk or visit the Trust Music website for more information.
NB: Sessions are currently being run via Zoom www.trustmusic.org.uk/event/music-sessions-via-zoom/

Registered Charity No: 1156540

If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, we can help you to explore the opportunities available, match you up with the most appropriate ones and provide on-going support.

WAVE offers outdoor activity, teambuilding, confidence building, leadership, mentoring & volunteer training opportunities to those who are most disadvantaged in Bolton.
Our objectives:
WAVE's main objectives are:
• To offer the most disadvantaged in our local communities opportunities to take part in activities which are healthy for the mind & body.
• To enable those experiencing social harm to make a positive contribution to their community.
• To work in partnership with relevant organisations with a clear focus on the well-being of a wide range of individuals.

The Women’s Fed is an organisation driven by maternal love which adheres to the principle that women working together, taking initiative and empowering one another across the traditional lines of race, culture and religion to create healthy families , are resolving the complex problems of the world. Members meet every first Wednesday of the month from 6-7:30pm at the Christine Partington House. Membership is open to women aged between 18 to 38 years.

Worktown Arts is a collective of visual arts and craftspeople of all ages, both professional and amateur. The collective's main objective is to promote the work of its members through exhibitions and other venues. It is a fully constituted organisation and is supportive of arts throughout Bolton in general.